Hey there, it seems to me as if you are trying to combine science and God and while I not necessarily have to insist on a literal 6 day creation (theoretically) I do insist on God being the creator, besides you say the people used the stories given to them, why didnt God correct the 'stories'? He gave the commandments to Moses (or do you disbelieve that as well?) couldnt he have clarified if there were any mistakes.
Like I said, I dont have to insist on literall 6 days, as a day can be a thousand years to God. But the account of Genesis is given by the same author who spoke to God directly
I use "story" in a generic sense to include quite a variety of things, some of which are literally true. The history of Israel is a story. As far as I can tell, most of it is also historical. But my point was that the Bible shows us what happened to Israel, but largely leaves it to us to draw conclusions. How much are the OT laws applicable to us? Just how does the OT covenant apply to us? How does Jesus fulfill the OT vision, although in an unexpected way? There are certainly clues in the NT (e.g. Acts 15), but we've given a fairly large scope to use our own judgement.
Similarly, Jesus used parables a lot. He didn't talk much about what his death meant, and even Paul's letters are directly at specific circumstances. The application to our condition is often a matter of judgement.
My point wasn't that the Bible is just stories in the sense of having no historical content. Clearly there is historical content, and it is significant that God actually had a covenant with Israel and Jesus actually died and rose. But in a document like this there's room for portions of the account to be something other than historical.
God could certainly have revealed the exact process of creation. But the evidence is that he did not. I believe God allowed the Bible to show us what he did through the eyes of the people involved. And that means it is to some extent limited to their understanding. Why does his character seem to change from the early history to the prophets and Jesus? I realize some conservatives try to justify Israel's slaughter of their enemies, but most Christians realize that we don't actually accept the vision of God's character that is present in many of these accounts. What we see from the OT isn't a single unified theology, but rather how Israel ideas grew from something very close to the tribal war god like the people around them, to someone who the prophets say expected Israel to be a light to the Gentiles. The Bible isn't intended as a collect of information where we can just pull insulated paragraphs out and use them as is. Rather, we need to look at how things developed over time.
In my view what we see in the creation stories is not a special revelation into how the earth was created, but rather two different creation accounts that are Israel's answer to the surrounding pagan myths. In both accounts God creates the world and makes mankind responsible for it. A very different picture than the pagan one. I don't think they had any special insight into the science of creation, but they did understand God and the role he expect us to play.
Suppose you were editing that section of the Bible. You would have historical sources for the history of Israel. But for the pre-history you had only your people's creation stories. Would you omit them, on the grounds that someone in the 19th Cent would misinterpret them as an alternative to science? No, because the stories showed Israel's understand of God and their relationship to him. A conservative Christian would clearly have preferred the editor to give an exposition of the doctrine of creation without something like looked like history and wasn't. But the Bible doesn't do things that way. Some of the NT letters do, but for the OT period, theology isn't done in the abstract, but is presented through narrative.
Why might God want to see a Bible of that kind? I believe one reason is because the Bible has had to survive many different cultures with differing levels of science and different philosophical approaches. If he had tried to give a doctrinal answer, it might have worked for Israel, but what would happen in the 2nd Cent, when Christians had to present the Gospel to people used to thinking in terms that came from Greek philosophy? The nice thing about narrative is that it can be reinterpreted as necessary in terms appropriate to the culture. It's hard to think of any other approach that would survive as well over thousands of years.
I think it's also because God is interested in building a relationship with us, and not just teaching facts. Stories inspire, and cause us to react personally. Theology doesn't do that so much. I think this is exactly why Jesus chose to teach largely with stories and examples and not in abstract terms, and is one reason that the Bible uses a lot of narrative and poetry and not so much abstract thought.
