While science led me away from YEC, it was Scripture that shifted my view on Adam from one actual man to a literary figure for humanity. In Genesis, Adam is the name or word for humanity in 1:26–27 and 5:1–2. In between is the story of the Adam. Given what surrounds it, I find it most natural to read this as retelling the story of humanity’s birth in a symbolic story. Adam representing humanity is not the only symbol: there are also the trees, serpent, and a very human-looking God who potters about, firing dirt vessels with divine breath, enjoying their company, learning their needs, seeking their welfare.
A good comparison to how Genesis uses Adam is how Ezekiel uses Jerusalem. This book has lots to say about Jerusalem, which typically refers to the population of the capital city of Judah but also tends to represent all Judahites. Given all the surrounding references, it’s pretty clear that when the prophet switches to a graphic story in which Jerusalem is a woman (chapter 16), it’s a personification. When reading about the woman Jerusalem it’s best to see the whole nation within her story, both in the sense that her life tells their history, and in the sense that each Judahite can know themselves better by looking at her. So too with Adam in Eden: this is the historical/theological story of humanity, and also a story each of us can find ourselves within.
Eden works better as a story that condenses a long history into a few characters and trees loaded with symbolic meaning. When a snake talks, not through miracle or demonic possession but simply by being the most subtle of the beasts God made, it doesn’t take a degree in literature or herpetology to see symbolism. Forcing the story into the mold of prosaic history leads to missing-the-point questions: how the serpent talks, how one fruit gives immortality, where Cain’s wife and fellow city-builders came from, how Eve heard God’s prohibition to Adam, whether Adam had a navel or one less rib. It may also lead to separating the Adam of Eden from the Adam of the sixth day, leading to multiple classes of humans, each with a different biblical portrait.
Also, the use Paul makes of Adam depends on the symbolic Adam rather than the actual man Adam. Paul speaks of us being in Adam or Christ, not descended from them. Adam is a type of Christ. Jesus is the second Adam. While Paul may have thought Adam was a literal man, what he writes depends on Adam representing humanity, particularly sinful humanity. (And if one thinks pairing Adam and Christ requires both to be either actual people or larger representations, consider who Paul thinks is Christ’s bride.)
Traditionally, there’s widespread support to thinking Adam is us. Even when paired with the belief that Adam also was the first man, it was the belief that Adam is everyone that tended to do the theological heavy lifting. Whether or not one maintains a belief in the first man (and for some the genealogies provide reason to do so), I think good theology and theodicy come easier if we see that Adam is us.