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[Sola Dosa]

Given modern humans have been around for at most 300 thousand years, why has Christianity only been present for 2 thousand years and Judaism a couple more before that. Was it possible for earlier humans to go to heaven?

[jimwalton]

The historic era started in about, what, 8000 BC. Before that, human life was quite primitive, according to the scientists. So let's suppose Adam and Eve were chosen out from among hominids around that time, as soon as humanity was able to handle God's revelation of himself. You'll notice from history, anthropology, and archaeology that there was sudden explosion of human population and civilization around that time.

Very possibly, if we want to entertain the speculation, God waited until humans were evolved enough to be spiritually capable and morally culpable, and at that point in time He told us about Himself, and then human development and civilization progressed at a rapid pace through agriculture, technology, the invention of writing, math, et al.

If this is the case, then God revealed himself when it was appropriate and continued to reveal himself to humans through the millennia (Gen. 1-10). As the population grew and people were misconstruing God (Gn. 11, the tower of Babel, around ca. 3000-2500 BC), God chose to reveal himself more thoroughly to Abraham (ca. 2000 BC), and eventually through Jesus (1st c. AD).

During the 300K years of human evolutionary development, hominids were possibly more like animals than humans, and God's revelation of himself would have been premature.

> Was it possible for earlier humans to go to heaven?

The ones that are pre-homosapien? Probably not. They were probably more like animals than humans. Modern humans seems to be (as far as scientists tell us) a blend of Neanderthal and Denisovans, and it is from that line that we came. It's questionable as to whether we can define anything before that as technically "human," even though they were of the homo- line (-habilis, -ergaster, -erectus, etc.).

But once humans were capable of a spiritual nature, God vested them with souls (Gn. 2.7), revealed Himself to them, and "men began to call on the name of the Lord" (Gn. 4.26). It is now that these humans can possibly go to heaven.