Is religious fundamentalism a modern movement?

I have seen statements made that in the past people were more easy going in their religious beliefs, willing to accept biblical statements in a metaphorical sense. The advent of science gave explanations that did not require the presence of God and therefore forced some religious believers to dig in more strongly and to interpret things literally in order to have a countervailing argument.

I am skeptical of this point of view. The idea of the universe being several billion years old is fairly recent as is the idea of evolution. My guess is that people just assumed that the universe was a few thousand years old and was the creation of God. If they did not get worked up about this, it was only because nobody was arguing to the contrary.