ThinkFreeDom-
www.theologywebsite.com/etext/egypt/creation.shtml
This website gives us the egyptian creation epic. Those to whom Genesis 1:1-2:25 was written already have known this epic, and some would have accepted it as fact. It predates Genesis by centuries, and was a major part of the egyptian pantheistic religion.
Upon reading this epic we see that the people believed all the celestial objects, as well as the planet, the atmosphere, and the 'heavens' were gods or goddesses. Egyptian pantheism also gave every god and goddess physical form, and there were over 40 of them. Those who were not in the form of a celestial object, such as the sun, moon, and stars, were in the form of one of the other species of animals that the people were familiar with. Others had the forms of at least two or three animals combined, such as having the head of a jackal attached to the body of a human being.
So Genesis was written as a rebuttal. The sun, moon, and stars were described as simply objects which produced light in the sky. The atmosphere was simply the division between the planet and the 'heavens'. The other species of animals, both land and aquatic, were simply other animals rather than representations of gods and goddesses. By the time the reader had gone from Genesis 1:1 to 2:3, the only Being that could be seen as being a deity was also a Being who was seperate from all that he had created. It was a demythologization of all that they had learned previously.
The second creation story (Genesis 2:4-25) separated man from all the other species of animals, a teaching that was contrary to the egyptian creation epic. Whereas in the earlier story man had simply been created on the last day along with all the other animals and then 'dumped' on this planet, the Genesis story spoke of his being created in a unique way. God gave Adam the job of naming all the other species of animals, a symbol of authority at that time. Adam could also converse directly with God. Adam had a region where he could live comfortably, free of arduous labor. Even his spouse was created in a unique manner.
And both Adam and Eve had the power to deliberately disobey God by choosing their own pride over his wisdom, and thus attaining the knowledge of good and evil. This no other specie of animal has to this day. Only mankind has the notion of some actions' being seen as good while other actions are to be seen as evil as a part of his psyche.
And what about the temptation and the serpent? Those to whom this was written would have immediately recognized it. It was the egyptian story of Ra the sun god engaging Sebau the serpent-fiend in battle, only in this story it was used to describe how mankind developed the knowledge of good and evil. Even the forcing of the serpent to crawl on his belly was taken directly from Ra's defeat of Sebau, and then his hacking off his front legs and binding his hind legs together. What fundamentalists try to describe as a literal event was seen by those to whom it was written as the means whereby Genesis' author identified the point in time when mankind lost its innocence.