I couldn’t agree more. Many of the evolutionist Christians go too far in my opinion. Genesis may not be history (let alone science) according to modern standards but the whole book clearly has history as at least one of the purposes for the story it is telling. It is all about the origin of things. Where did our world come from? Where did we come from? Where did evil and sin come from? Where did the multiplicity of languages, cultures, and nations come from. But most importantly, for this occupies most of the book, where did the Israelites come from. It is setting the stage for the stories which follow that we may learn from God’s relationship with these people.
But there is a middle ground between only literal Bible and only science describes what is real. Where to draw the line may be difficult but here is a principle which may help: look for what gives the text the most meaning. Now consider the following points remembering that I am NOT trying to dissuade you from YEC, I am just trying to illustrate the principle.
- You don’t acquire knowledge by eating a fruit.
- Nothing in the Christian experience supports the idea that God would be opposed to understanding the difference between good and evil. Quite the opposite.
- The eternal life which God promises us is also not something you acquire by eating a fruit.
- Snakes don’t talk.
Because of these disconnects with our lives, there is great potential for increasing the meaning of the story if you don’t insist on taking them literally anymore than you would take many of the parables of Jesus literally. Besides, the Bible even tells us in two of these cases, that they have a deeper meaning than the literal understanding. The last of these, number 4 is easiest because we have other passages in the Bible (Revelations) that tell us that the ancient serpent and deceiver of the whole world is the devil and Satan who was a leader of angels which were cast out of heaven. This makes the story more meaningful than the talking snake, for it shows his role in the fall of mankind. The rest of the Bible is also helpful in the case of the tree of life for it is spoken of elsewhere. But I will let you look those up yourself. The others are not so easy, but the point remains that more is going on in this narrative than a straight forward historical account. It can actually be more meaningful, if it is not taken literally. But to be sure, this can go too far if the story is taken so metaphorical that it longer gives the promised explanation of origins.
So what does any of this have to do with contradictions with the findings of science? This is another disconnect with modern life which has the unavoidable effect of making the Bible less meaningful to people today. It gives good cause for a great deal of people to dismiss the whole book out of hand as nothing but nonsense. If it sounds too much like a fantasy and fairy story then they have little reason believe it is anything more than that. Thus the Bible is far more meaningful to people if there is no such contradiction with science.
For the whole treatment of Garden of Eden story in Genesis along these lines see here.