http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=438
Ancient Nitwits or Knowledgeable Ancestors?
| by | Eric Lyons, M.Min. |
Were our forefathers the ignorant, unlearned nitwits that many evolutionists today make them out to be? Did they resemble the brutish, club-carrying cavemen that Hollywood movies show—savages who communicated by using grunts and groans rather than real language? Absolutely not!
Research shows that many of our ancestors were very intelligent. Take, for instance, the ancient Egyptians. More than 4,000 years ago, they built great pyramid-shaped “tombs” in which to bury their dead kings. One of these tombs, known as the Great Pyramid, stood nearly 500 feet high (almost as tall as the Washington Monument—the tallest stone structure in the world!) The Great Pyramid was made of over two million blocks of stone that had to be cut, transported, and assembled to create the almost six-million-ton structure. To this day, modern man still does not know exactly how the Egyptians built these great pyramids.
The ancient Mayans are another example of our “finely tuned” forefathers. More than one thousand years before astronomers found that the length of a year was precisely 365.2422 days, the Mayans (without computers or modern measuring devices) calculated it to be 365.2420 days long. They also figured the orbit of Venus to be 584 days, when current science shows it at 583.92 days. Without question, the Mayans were an intelligent people.
As you would expect, the Bible verifies these types of historical facts. By reading just the first six chapters of Genesis, we learn that: (1) Adam was created with the ability to speak a language (naming all of the animals God brought to him the very day of his creation—2:19); (2) Jubal, one of Cain’s descendents, “was the father of all those who play the harp and flute” (4:21); (3) Tubal-Cain, Jubal’s half-brother, formed tools out of bronze and iron (4:22); and (4) Noah built an ark bigger than many modern-day cruise ships. Furthermore, Job chapter 28 indicates that our early forefathers were capable of tunneling through rock, and mining precious metals from deep within the Earth. All of these things were accomplished without modern-day power tools or lightening-fast computers.
Truth be told, our ancestors were no dummies; man has been intelligent since the beginning of time. God made us that way. He created us in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27), and crowned us with glory and honor (Psalm 8:5).