This one was a Red Forman “beer church”, apart from it not being a church at all. It can be difficult to get one’s mind around the length of time before the existence of Judaism, out of which Christianity was derived, even for those who believe the Earth originated in 4004 BC.
Judaism originated during the Babylonian Captivity; it is rooted in the Temple period (which saw its schisms), which in turn derived from the Tabernacle period, which originated and evolved after the Exodus, circa 1450 BC, during the forty years of Wandering.
It seems likely that both the Golden Calf and the Ark of the Convenant were built of the (Egyptian) coffin of Joseph.
Even after the Conquest, the various local gentry oppressed the Israelites for long periods, and there must have been a decentralization of religious leadership and practices. Whatever those practices were, they probably had local variations which were quite dramatic, and picked up bits and pieces of foreign cults in the area.
Everything that came before the Exodus is found in a greatly condensed form in Genesis. The only Biblical evidence for any kind of earlier priesthoods appear as non-Hebrew cults, such as Melchizedek (”Zedek is my King”) of Abraham’s time, and Abraham’s early attempts (taking his own son to sacrifice him).
The earliest surviving writing (that can be read, anyway; there is some kind of runic system preserved among the Neolithic cave paintings) antedates the Bible by thousands of years, and preserves scraps of other belief systems that come across as quite alien to us.
I take the bible straightforwardly. It doesn’t bother me in the least that earlier writings may resemble certain things in it. That would be logical if the bible is the real deal and doesn’t present an argument against it being the real deal.
I don’t know why the jibes at some extreme forms of YEC. Our modern cosmologists, for reasons that have nothing to do with spirituality, have posited things like string theory and intersecting universes. We get odd stuff like dark matter that could suggest these things. Two universes that interpenetrate could furnish two frames of reference for the six day creation and the long eras that we observe in our own mortal coil. Suffice it to say that OEC (day-age theory) is considered to fall within the realm of orthodoxy by most serious evangelical scholars.
Ultimately I say I believe because I’ve met God. God closed in on me.