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When it comes to some of the stories in the Bible, I would always keep in mind the basic principles of ancient literature. From what I've gathered in my time, many stories are based on exhaggerated events and characters, perhaps based loosely on real characters. Not to mention the history of the book itself. Back in the days of hand copying books, there's nothing to say certain individuals of the church (which has a touchy history in itself) didn't make their own interpretive alterations to the text. The translation from Latin to the old (more or less) tribal-esuqe language of Enlgish didn't happen for a good while, presenting plenty of oppurtunity for editing by the upper class, literate church. Add to that none of the original texts have been discovered...
I don't much find The Bible's word to be a solid argument. To each their own, however.
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Yes, but... Genesis is from the Old Testament, the Hebrew version of which has remained virtually unchanged for at least 2000 years and probably much longer, based on the Dead Sea Scrolls. The translations are shonky in parts
(eg Moses with horns) but have gotten better over the centuries.
An extra Gerald Schroeder reference for Ambi's enjoyment:
Before the big bang, there were no dimensions. After it the universe spread out, taking with it space and time. One theory is that the amount of the time dimension is finite and fixed so that as it expands, time slows down. Now, take the estimated age of the universe and divide it by how much it has expanded and you get... Six days and twenty-something hours! Thus you could say that we are still in the seventh day of rest.
Make of that what you will.
