@gbrooks9
George,
Could be. It’s not my favorite, but that view has a few fans around here. You should check out @aleo Al’s posts on a couple of these more recent threads, I think that’s pretty close to what he thinks.
To not be a broken record and say the same things I always say about my preferred approach to Adam and Eve, you could look around about response #30 on the Adam and Eve and population genetics thread where we were talking about humanity and image bearing. Or the God’s relationship to early humans thread.
I personally think the Fall of the Bible was an actual historical failure of a real human in the ancestry of Abraham/Israel, but the main point of telling it is to give to us an archetype, by which we understand all of humanity’s brokenness and rebellion and need for a Savior, including our own. I don’t think it’s important that it be the first human, by whatever metric one measures “humanity.” I don’t think it’s important that it be the first instance ever of immoral behavior by a human. I think God may very well have related to other humans before Adam, and that God may have related to humans outside of Adam’s people group. Looking at archaeology and science, it appears humans were human and capable of moral behavior and spiritual awareness long before I think the biblical Adam came on the scene.
As far as the need for salvation for people capable of moral behavior before Adam, I don’t think the issues are really that different from when we talk about current people around the world who have never heard the gospel, or children who die young. Are they automatically condemned because of their ignorance or lack of opportunity? I think those are hard questions we don’t really have satisfying answers for, and I just rest in the hope that God’s loving justice and desire that all be saved will somehow give everyone with an immortal soul the chance to either recognize or reject Jesus’ lordship.
I really don’t think this is one of the issues facing Christians that merits dogmatism. People should pick the perspective that gives them the most peace, (theologically and scientifically) and the view that they think is most consistent with the character of a loving and good Creator. Then go out and do something Christ-like, because that is really the point.