How does TE address the issue of sin and evil in the world .. It's easy enough to do if you take the first three chapters of Genesis literally, but how do you explain the universality of sin w/o first parents? Without them, who's to blame for the sin/evil which has beset our entire race?
BioLogos said that such a question is fodder for the theologians to wrestle with, but you're a Christian, so surely you've given this matter some thought. How did you answer that question for yourself?
Sure. My answer is a pretty common TE answer, one supported by whole churches as well.
In short, original sin works much the same. To see it, think of a population of apes evolving and becoming more human.
As the whole community gradually evolves from ape to human, whatever arbitrary characteristic is used to define "being human", one individual will be the first to cross that line – including a line of “God divinely creating a soul” in one. At that point, his free will allows him to rebel against God, and disobey him. This results in the fall, and original sin, passed on to his kids. We can call this first creature to be given a soul the first human, Adam. God also gives a soul to Eve. Adam and his children are still part of a large community of many others - but none of the others have been given a soul, and are not fully human. As his children take spouses from the community, each generation has more and more people who are human, who are descendants of Adam, and who have souls (and original sin), until everyone is human.
Of course, all humans will be descended from Adam, just as they are all descended from others as well. Think of that mayflower club, which only allows members who are descended from the few people who came over from Europe on the mayflower. That club today has thousands of members, and in a few thousand years or so, literally everyone on earth will be descended from those on the mayflower. The same holds true for an individual, so long as they have a few kids - such as, say, Thomas Jefferson, who'd descendants today are in the many thousands of people. Thus, if you have a few kids, it is very likely that in a few thousand years, literally everyone on earth will be descended from you as well. If Adam was as recent as even 20,000 years ago, then this works fine - and even more so for an Adam 500,000 or farther back (don't confuse the real Adam with Y-chromosome Adam, that's a different idea).
It's easy enough to do if you take the first three chapters of Genesis literally,
But is it? I mean, the story is obviously symbolic all through it (Jesus never literally crushes Satan's skull, Satan never literally bites Jesus' foot, even the names "Adam" and "Eve" are symbols for "earth" and "mother", and so on).
If it were literally true, then it would mean that there was this magical fruit, and the magic of the fruit made people feel embarrassed. It seems obvious that even a literal reading has to ask "what was the cause of original sin?", because it seems silly to say that it was due to magical fruit. The "sin" seems to be rebelling against God - which is something anyone can do simply by refusing to acknowledge God's sovereignty - which is what any disobeying/rebelling is doing. So the story appears to be intended to be symbolic, leaving literalists with no reasonable explanation for original sin. If it were an unfortunate result of magical fruit, then would not a loving God have said "oh, the magic of the fruit - I can fix that." and made things as they were before? Or is the magical fruit really more powerful than God? No - it was about rebelling, not about magic, right?
Some may think that fruit with magic more powerful than God makes more sense than original sin being the act of rebelling - but not me.
Does that help?
In Christ-
Papias
It's easy enough to do if you take the first three chapters of Genesis literally, but how do you explain the universality of sin w/o first parents? Without them, who's to blame for the sin/evil which has beset our entire race? 
). So another problem I have is where and how do we begin to divorce ourselves from the mindset that the Bible is simply a "myth" and begin to hold that the Bible is a true and historically accurate document (with a spiritual twist, of course, for those who are in Christ). 
Beyond that, more thought and discussion will be necessary I think.
