I agree with you regarding the concept of knowing a tree by its fruit, but I see the book of Genesis mainly as a form of poetry. I am not convinced that the serpent is the "person", Satan.
2 Corinthians 11:3
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Revelation 12:9
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him
Unless you want to wave away John and Paul and other parts of the bible as well, there can be no doubt who the serpent is
And I also think it's possible that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was just like a lot of fruit trees in the garden, but by God telling them not to eat of it, it gave them personal experience/knowledge of good and evil when they disobeyed.
We can speculate.
I think we add a LOT of baggage to the actual language and words in our bibles. I like to ask folks sometimes, when they make the claim that the earth is 6000 years old, how much time passed between Genesis 1:1 and 1:3?
Less than a day. If anyone doubts, we can read it
Genesis 1:5
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day
That encompasses the things done before the day was mentioned as being a day. In the same way all other days are likewise denoted
Maybe the takeaway is not that the earth is 6000 years old, but that this AGE is 6000 years old.
No. The 6000 is an educated, bible based guess as to when Adam lived. Since he was created at the beginning, that tells us when it all started here.
We believe the science that the earth is a ball orbiting the sun. Why can we not believe that the earth really is quite old?
No. Not if we believe it was created.
The evidence is quite literally overwhelming.
Not true. All evidence is subject to belief based interpretation
It's not that it contradicts what the bible says. Rather, it contradicts how some interpret what the bible says.
No. It denies all sorts of facts about creation. If a day was not a day, how long do you think Adam could have lived before woman was created? Claiming millions of years makes no sense. Most people who go down the road you speak of end up denying there was a real woman made from a created real man. etc etc
And Jesus never talked about Hell. But that is another subject for another thread.
Jesus talked about hell more than anyone else in the bible.
Example:
Matthew 5:22
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
