Pre-Adamite Man (1888)

I read Paschal Beverly Randolph’s Pre-Adamite Man for the claims a later writer can set beside Plato, Bunsen, and the flood dates used by Tomas, Spence, and Armond. The copy in front of me is the sixth edition, Toledo, Ohio, Randolph Publishing Company, 1888. The title page prints the subtitle as a demonstration that the human race existed upon this earth 100,000 thousand years ago. I keep that doubled wording, because it is what the page prints. The preface, on p. x, states the figure differently. The book is out of copyright. The quotes below are his sentences. Page numbers are the printed headers.

The book is in three parts: ancient beginnings, ancient Europe, and fossil man. The findings I would carry are the two propositions in the preface, the chronology he stacks in chapter VI, and the table on p. 133, where Atlantis sits on the same line as Nimrod and Babylon.

The book at a glance

• Title: Pre-Adamite Man: Demonstrating the Existence of the Human Race upon This Earth 100,000 Thousand Years Ago!
• Author: Dr. Paschal Beverly Randolph. The motto under the name is Je Renais de mes Cendres.
• Edition I read: Sixth edition. Toledo, Ohio: Randolph Publishing Company. 1888. The copy carries the stamp of the Holbrook Library, Pacific School of Religion.
• What he claims: Adam was not the first man. Pre-adamite men existed on all the continents, certainly 35,000 years, and probably 100,000 years, before the date usually assigned to Adam. Plato’s Atlantis sank 9,000 years before Plato’s own age. A table of his own puts civilized nations in eastern Asia at 35,000 B.C., a flood in Asia and part of Europe at 21,000 B.C., and Nimrod, Atlantis, and Babylon at 16,000 B.C.

Findings worth setting beside other writers

• The two propositions. A portion of ancient and modern history is what he calls a gigantic swindle. Adam was not the first man. Pre-adamite men existed on all the continents, certainly 35,000, and probably 100,000, years before the usual date of Adam (p. x).
• The title’s figure. The title page prints “100,000 thousand years ago.” The preface prints “probably 100,000 years.” I leave both.
• Plato. Atlantis, which he glosses Isle of Delights, sunk in the ocean 9,000 years before the age in which Plato lived (p. 109). On p. 119 he says it is highly probable that Plato’s Atlantis was not a figment, and that ocean beds now cover continents and islands of an inhabited world.
• Three flood dates on one page. Noah’s Flood, one account, B.C. 2,348. Deucalion, 1,503 B.C. The deluge of Xisuthrus, at least 10,000 years before the Christian era (p. 109).
• His own flood arithmetic, p. 117. The coldest recent period at the poles was 10,114 years ago. The greatest recent heat at the poles was not less than 22,000 years ago, and the melting of the ice on that occasion may have caused Noah’s Flood, which he says has no date inside the truly historical and monumental periods. He also says there are distinct accounts of two Oriental floods, the first of which could not have taken place less than 42,200 years ago. Since the Flood, at the very lowest Bunsenian calculation, 11,812 years must have elapsed.
• Egypt before Menes. Egypt was an organized state 5,863 years before Menes, or nearly 12,000 years ago (p. 119). On the same page he says Abraham went to Egypt nearly thirty centuries before Christ. The table on p. 117 gives Menes as 6,000 years ago. The table on p. 133 gives the date of Menes as 4,200 B.C. I keep both.
• The table on p. 133, in B.C. Creation of man, unknown. Civilized nations on the plateaus of eastern Asia, 35,000. Earliest date of the founders of the Thinite nation, 28,000. The flood in Asia and part of Europe, 21,000. Nimrod, Atlantis, and Babylon, 16,000. Ghost-worship in Egypt, 12,000. Menes, 4,200. Abraham, probably not less than 2,900. Moses, 1,900. Solomon, 1,015. From the first civilization known, to Christ, 35,000.
• China and Japan, on p. 109, as he prints the annals. Chinese records extend 63,000 years. A Chinese empire divested of traditional elements, 5,164. Japan: celestial spirits for fifteen million years, then human emperors for 15,000 years, plus 600 and 1,862, a total of 17,462 years, traced to 700 B.C. Buddha died 3,384 years ago. The progenitors of the Turks had great kingdoms in Asia 4,211 years ago. A Tibetan chronology, semi-Buddhist, before Christ, 11,869.

For Plato’s own text, see Timaeus & Critias. For a 9560 B.C. reading of the same Sais voyage, see Andrew Tomas’s Atlantis: From Legend to Discovery. For 9,500 years before the priests, left as that figure, see Edgard Armond’s Os Exilados da Capela.

Preface

He says he has demonstrated two propositions. The first is that a certain portion of ancient, as well as modern, history is a gigantic swindle. The second is the one I would put in a table.

Pre-adamite men existed on all the continents of the globe certainly 35,000, and probably 100,000, years prior to the date usually assigned to that rather mythical personage.

Paschal Beverly Randolph, Pre-Adamite Man (Randolph Publishing Company, 1888), p. x

The personage is Adam. He says this fact will have to be taken, however bitter the pill. The authorities he then names, on the same page and the next, include Lord Lindsay on the Anakim, Abydenus, Apollodorus, Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place in Universal History, nine versions of the Bible, Cory’s fragments, Colenso, and Champollion. I use the list as his own map of sources. I do not treat a name on that list as a finding until he states what he takes from it.

Chapter VI. The clocks

Chapter VI is headed, in the contents, as the cosmogonic and chronological chapter. The page I use first is p. 109, where he sets other people’s eras in a column and then states Plato and the floods in his own sentences. The column above the Plato sentence, as printed, includes a Julian period of 6,576, Fourier at 17,000, a Chaldean figure of 473,000, and a Samaritan Pentateuch, Nablous, Syria, at 6,167. I do not press the Chinese figure in that same column, because the digits there are crowded. The sentences under the column are clear.

And Plato tells us that the Atlantis (Isle of Delights) sunk in the ocean 9,000 years before the age in which he lived.

Paschal Beverly Randolph, Pre-Adamite Man (Randolph Publishing Company, 1888), p. 109

One account tells us that Noah's Flood took place, B. C. 2,348; and another fixes that of Deucalion at 1,503 B. C.; while the Deluge of Xisuthrus, dates at least 10,000 years before the Christian era.

Paschal Beverly Randolph, Pre-Adamite Man (Randolph Publishing Company, 1888), p. 109

He then prints a Tibetan chronology, semi-Buddhist, before Christ, 11,869. It is known that Buddha died 3,384 years ago. The progenitors of the present race of Turks had great kingdoms in Asia 4,211 years ago. Chinese records, which he marks as probable, extend 63,000 years, and they ousted nations who had occupied the soil for 7,000 years. Divested of traditional elements, the Chinese empire was an old one at 5,164. A Chinese work dating six hundred years before Christ speaks of the advantages of ancient systems of education.

Japan, he says, is as astonishing. Their annals declare that they were ruled for fifteen million years by celestial spirits, and then by human emperors for fifteen thousand years, to which must be added six hundred and one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two years, a total of seventeen thousand four hundred and sixty-two years. Their history is satisfactorily traced to 700 B.C.

On p. 117 the argument is the shifting of the earth’s axis. The poles, and therefore the equator, move. At one extreme there is a terrible degree of cold at the poles, and vast accumulations of ice. The poles, he says, have been permanently shifted more than once.

The coldest recent period occurred at the poles ten thousand one hundred and fourteen years ago.

Paschal Beverly Randolph, Pre-Adamite Man (Randolph Publishing Company, 1888), p. 117

The earth is now verging toward the opposite extreme, and the climates of America and Europe are undergoing rapid changes on that account. The greatest recent degree of heat at the poles occurred not less than twenty-two thousand years ago, in consequence of the deviation of the earth’s axis. The melting of the ice on that occasion may have been the cause of Noah’s Flood. He says that flood has not a date within the truly historical and monumental periods, and that those periods carry us first to Menes, and second to nearly, or quite, double that length of time.

But we have distinct accounts of two Oriental floods; the first of which could not have taken place less than forty-two thousand two hundred years ago!

Paschal Beverly Randolph, Pre-Adamite Man (Randolph Publishing Company, 1888), p. 117

Under that, a small table on Bunsen’s authority. Menes lived 6,000 years ago. Kings reigning in Lower Egypt, 1,790 years. Secular princes of all Egypt, 1,817. Sacerdotal princes, 1,835. Then the line I would copy for the flood interval.

Since the Flood, years must have elapsed to the number of, at the very lowest, Bunsenian calculation 11,812.

Paschal Beverly Randolph, Pre-Adamite Man (Randolph Publishing Company, 1888), p. 117

On p. 119 he leaves the philological argument. Abraham went to Egypt nearly thirty centuries before Christ was born, and found a vast and populous kingdom and a language exhibiting abundant proofs of long cultivation. Civilizations, he says, have passed away and left not a wreck. Plato comes next.

It is highly probable that Plato's Atlantis was not a figment of poetic brains; and that ocean beds may now be stretching beneath the weltering seas, which, over wide-extended regions, have been once the busy continents and islands of an inhabited and civilized world.

Paschal Beverly Randolph, Pre-Adamite Man (Randolph Publishing Company, 1888), p. 119

The same paragraph says man did not have an origin even forty thousand years ago. Recent discoveries lead him to believe that enormous period may be at least doubled, and yet be within moderate bounds.

Egypt was an organized State 5,863 years before Menes, or nearly 12,000 years ago.

Paschal Beverly Randolph, Pre-Adamite Man (Randolph Publishing Company, 1888), p. 119

He takes the first year of that date as a point of departure, and says human antiquity was ancient even then. The first ground he gives is that the six days of creation, 6,000 years ago, are not geologically satisfactory.

The table on p. 133

He says a summary of results deduced from Bunsen and other bibliological and Egyptological research will present approximations toward the very truth itself, independent of his own reasonings. The lines are in B.C.

Line	B.C.
Creation of man, in the dim background of time	unknown
Civilized nations on the plateaus of eastern Asia	35,000
Earliest date of the founders of the Thinite nation	28,000
The flood in Asia and part of Europe	21,000
Date of Nimrod, Atlantis, and Babylon	16,000
Date of ghost-worship in Egypt	12,000
Date of Menes	4,200
Date of Abraham, probably not less than	2,900
Date of Moses	1,900
Date of Solomon	1,015
From the first civilization known, to Christ	35,000

The prose around the table says the history of the world is post-diluvian and ante-diluvian, and the barrier that divides them is the last of the so-called floods. Civilized states in Asia go as far antecedent to that event as we are subsequent to it. This gives not less than twenty-six thousand years, at the farther end of which civilized nations unquestionably existed on the Nile. The deluge, he says, cannot have happened later than from twelve to fourteen thousand years ago, and probably long before that. He thinks this tradition was a hoary one even in the earliest days of the first Chaldean monarchies, those that preceded Nimrod, on the assumption of only one deluge. He asks, if there were not more floods than one, whence the American legends.

Where I leave the book

The pages I would actually carry are p. x (35,000 certain, 100,000 probable, on all the continents), the title page (the printed phrase 100,000 thousand years ago), p. 109 (Atlantis 9,000 years before Plato, Noah 2,348 B.C., Deucalion 1,503 B.C., Xisuthrus at least 10,000 years before the Christian era, China 63,000, Japan 17,462 years back to 700 B.C.), p. 117 (poles at 10,114 and 22,000, a first Oriental flood at 42,200, Menes at 6,000 years ago, 11,812 years since the Flood), p. 119 (Atlantis not a figment, Egypt 5,863 years before Menes), and p. 133 (the B.C. table, with Atlantis at 16,000 beside Nimrod and Babylon).

The rest of the book is a long argument that Scripture, as he has it, has been pointed and altered, that Europe is older than the usual Egyptian start, and that fossil skeletons belong to geological ages. Those chapters name the caves and the skulls. I have not entered a cave measurement I did not read on the page. The dates above are the ones I would set beside another author.

He says, on p. 133, that the figures look alarming, and that it is in our power to prove equally high ones. The work of comparison is to keep his clocks separate.

Where to read it

Randolph died in 1875. This sixth edition is dated 1888. The text is out of copyright. A scan that identifies itself as this book is on the Internet Archive under the identifier preadamitemandem0000rand. The page numbers above are the printed headers of the Toledo edition of 1888.

FAQ

Where does Randolph place Atlantis?

He does not draw a shoreline. On p. 109 Atlantis is the Isle of Delights, sunk in the ocean 9,000 years before the age in which Plato lived. On p. 119 the drowned land is ocean beds that were once continents and islands. On p. 133 Atlantis is a date, 16,000 B.C., on the same line as Nimrod and Babylon.

What year does he use for the flood?

More than one. Noah, one account, 2,348 B.C. Deucalion, 1,503 B.C. Xisuthrus, at least 10,000 years before the Christian era (p. 109). A lowest Bunsenian count of 11,812 years since the Flood (p. 117). A first Oriental flood not less than 42,200 years ago (p. 117). A flood in Asia and part of Europe at 21,000 B.C., and a latest possible deluge twelve to fourteen thousand years ago (p. 133).

What does he claim about Adam?

Adam was not the first man. Pre-adamite men existed on all the continents, certainly 35,000 years, and probably 100,000 years, before the date usually assigned to Adam (p. x). The title page prints a third form, 100,000 thousand years ago.

How does his Egypt date work?

On p. 119, Egypt was an organized state 5,863 years before Menes, or nearly 12,000 years ago. On p. 117, Menes lived 6,000 years ago. On p. 133, the date of Menes is 4,200 B.C., and ghost-worship in Egypt is 12,000 B.C. I keep the three.

Related on this site

1. Timaeus & Critias: Plato’s account. Randolph’s p. 109 is his 9,000 years before Plato, and his name Isle of Delights.
2. Where Was Atlantis: other proposed locations. His p. 119 puts the land under ocean beds. His p. 133 dates it with Nimrod and Babylon.
3. Andrew Tomas’s Atlantis: From Legend to Discovery: 9560 B.C. from Solon and Sais. Randolph leaves the 9,000 years uncomputed, and prints other flood years beside it.
4. Edgard Armond’s Os Exilados da Capela: 9,500 years before the priests of Sais, and Maya years 8452 B.C. and 4292 B.C.
5. Lewis Spence’s The History of Atlantis: a 9600 BC Atlantic land. Randolph’s Atlantis line in the table is 16,000 B.C.

Sources

The book

• Paschal Beverly Randolph, Pre-Adamite Man. Sixth edition. Toledo, Ohio: Randolph Publishing Company, 1888. Title page: demonstrating the existence of the human race upon this earth 100,000 thousand years ago. Motto: Je Renais de mes Cendres. Page numbers above are the printed headers. Preface claim on p. x.

The clocks, as he prints them

• Plato, 9,000 years before his own age. Noah, 2,348 B.C. Deucalion, 1,503 B.C. Xisuthrus, at least 10,000 years before the Christian era (p. 109). Poles, 10,114 and not less than 22,000 years ago. First Oriental flood, 42,200 years ago. Bunsenian years since the Flood, 11,812. Menes, 6,000 years ago (p. 117). Egypt, 5,863 years before Menes (p. 119). The B.C. table from unknown creation to Solomon, with Atlantis at 16,000 (p. 133).