"God was sovereign in every detail of the writing and preservation of His word. It is infallible, not subject to the limitations of human authorship. Or hadn't you thought of that?"
So how do you explain the evidence for the earth being billions of years old?
Genesis 1 was not intended to be taken literally. It's purpose is to convey the truth that God is the ultimate creator of the universe. The details, such as time, order, and the like, are merely poetic and allegorical.
The same way I explain the evidence for Adam appearing to be a full-grown adult when he was one day old.
A friend of mine, who was going for his PhD in antropology and happened to be a Christian who knew Hebrew, told me some very interesting things about the first couple verses in Genesis. If anyone knows Hebrew and can let me know if these are wrong, please do so but, here goes... He said that there is a change in tense between the 1st and 2nd verses of chapter one. The first verse indicates creation and the second verse indicates that the Earth BECAME void, as if something happened to it to change its original form. From then on God had to clean it up, so to speak, and make it habitable for man. His theory was that it was the fall of Satan, shen Satan was cast out of Heaven. There are other Scripture verses that indicate that at one time Earth was a place of great mineral beauty.
As an aside, I also don't see why a 6 day creation is inconsistent with the laws of physics, etc. God could have simply established those laws at the same time He created the Universe. Just because there are oil and coal deposits, doesn't mean He couldn't have created the Earth with them in place, knowing that we would someday need them.