True, hence my leaning towards "probably not". I'm not sure that Scripture clearly rules out such possibilities, so presumably the theological significance of their existence or otherwise is minimal at best. To me it's much like the idea of Russell's teapot - Scripture doesn't provide us any specific information to indicate one way or the other whether God created such a vessel. Based on Scriptural silence it's not necessarily appropriate to assume absence. Since the presence or otherwise of the teapot has no bearing on anything else it doesn't really matter. It's good to nail aberrant viewpoints when they represent seeds that could grow into all sorts of toxic theology, although frequently the more bizarre theologies assume something is true because Scripture doesn't explicitly say otherwise. The difference between interpreting Scriptural silence as supporting a claim and interpreting that silence to mean it neither supports nor detracts from a claim is significant. If the existence or otherwise of pre-Adam human beings had theological significance then we would need to explore the possibilities in more detail. If it has no theological significance then we could argue whether or not it even counts as a theological view at all, in the same way we could debate whether the existence or otherwise of Russell's teapot is a theological view.
I understand it as a reaction to satan losing authority (which is what "heaven" was understood as ... a higher authority, with God being the highest of all) as the disciples were casting out demons. I don't take it literally. Don't see any indication to. In context it makes perfect sense to see it as allegorical rather than literal.
Why aren't you sure? If demons aren't fallen angels, then that is significant to angelology, and what we consider to be angelic activity in the world (why, for example, are angels at odds with this legendary race if they are two separate species, angels presumably the superior of the two, given the other is cursed?). It also means suggesting the only time where God actively curses an aspect of His creation, i.e. judged it, prior to final judgment. If you then accept that there exists an entire history, forgotten in Genesis 1.2, and aspects of that failed creation continue to exist today, then you must account for the ways this speaks towards the God's character, and the kind of world we live in. Why not assume, for example, that creation is cyclical, and we're just another cycle of trillions of cycles? Russell's teapot was an argument for the ridiculousness of religious belief. It fits here, but not in the way you're using it. If the question speaks towards God, it's theologically significant. There's no such thing as insignificant when it comes to the world of ideas.
I don't believe it, and I don't not believe it. It's speculation, like I stated already. Whether or not you allow yourself to speculate, probably depends on how literally you take Genesis as far as it being a "history book" that reports literal events in chronological order. It also depends whether you believe that God actually created Earth shapeless and chaotic, or if something happened that caused it to become shapeless and chaotic. People who subscribe to the "gap theory" believe that there was actually a loooooooong span of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. We look at Genesis not as the creation story, but as a creation story; one that happened after some cataclysmic event that caused the Earth to become shapeless, chaotic, and covered with water -- and God re-creating and re-birthing it from such a state. We believe that Genesis is simply our beginning of this very specific, particular phase of God's (re)creation of our planet with and its people of our particular age --- we certainly don't believe Genesis describes the one and only beginning of anything and everything God has ever created and will ever create. Others believe that God created the Earth in stages ... starting from chaos and then moving on from it. Creation beliefs are numerous and differ greatly, depending on how you interpret Genesis ... and there's lots of ways to interpret it. It's quite fascinating, really.
And getting dumber every day it seems. Bad is called good and good called bad. People want to claim a gender they weren't born as and no amount of surgery can actually, really change that. I think Scripture mentions something about this eh?
It's not a question of viewing Genesis as a 'history book', but of respecting what the text says. We can approach Genesis and arrive at X, Y, or Z view, but in every case we're dealing with the same text. Speculation in light of what a text says is one thing, and quite different from speculation that ignores the text. Genesis 1.1 refers to the creation even. If gap theory is correct, then Genesis 1.2 refers to a re-creation event of the earth specifically, but not of 'the heavens'. One of the ways gap theory falls apart, imo, is that the earth is 'formless and void', yet we read of creative events that pertain to light, the stars, etc. That is, aspects of creation that have nothing to do with the earth. The correct view, as that's what we actually read in the text. And boring. One view is right, the rest are wrong.
To me it's like this. Why speculate that there "could have" been pre-Adamic people? Nothing in scripture, that I've ever seen, anyway, even seems to suggest such a thing. I mean, it's also POSSIBLE God "could have" made giant Transformer robot beings before Adam. He also "could have" even created a race of people made out of spaghetti noodles...but does scripture say anything that could legitimately make us think it's likely?
Whether or not demons are fallen angels doesn't have to be related to whether or not a race of men existed before Adam. Where Genesis refers to "in the beginning" does it say whether that refers to the beginning of everything or the beginning of the heavens and the earth as we currently know it? If (and it is a big if) there was a pre-Adam race of men who knows what might have happened to them? Maybe they never sinned and are now in heaven. Maybe there were none righteous among them and they were all destroyed. The key thing is that, since the Bible is silent on the existence or otherwise of such a race, all we can do is speculate. I know what the original argument was about but that doesn't change the point here. Whether or not Russell's teapot exists isn't something we can conclude from Scripture. Scripture cannot be used for explicit support or detraction from the argument that it exists. Arguably so, but if we take the view that God has given us everything we need to know about him within the words of Scripture it isn't impossible that a pre-Adam race of man isn't listed because it doesn't contain anything we need to know about.
I'd agree with you entirely on this. We can't explicitly state, with a direct appeal to Scripture, that such a race existed and neither can we explicitly state that such a race did not exist. Therefore it's speculation. It's not a direction of speculation I personally have any great interest in following, largely because it ends up being little more than endless guesswork very long on "what if" and "maybe" statements and very short on objective support. But the fact I personally don't find such speculation fruitful doesn't mean others aren't allowed to engage in it. As you say Scripture doesn't rule out a race of transformer-style robots before Adam but their existence is likewise speculation with nothing to underpin the speculation except an appeal to the silence of Scripture.
If there is absolutely no backing, proof or even inference of these wild speculations to be found in Scripture then wouldn't it be more edifying to say that we should always look to Scripture for the answers rather than say they are an appeal to the silence of Scripture? Please understand I'm not condemning, saying "Wrong!" or trying to beat a dead horse I'm just not understanding where either you or Dani are coming from on this.
Gen 1:26 - Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Gen 11:7 - Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech. To whom is God talking? Job 38:-7 - when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Perhaps those? Paul - For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. Angels watching and learning.