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"But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female." Man was created male and female "from the beginning of the creation," not after millions of years.

A literal interpretation of Genesis would put it 5 days later, which is still not at the beginning.

But lets go back to Mark 10:6 in the original:

απο δε αρχης κτισεως αρσεν και θηλυ εποιησεν αυτους ο θεος

The key words being αρχης (strong's 746) and κτισεως (strong's 2937). I am not sure why this implies the beginning of the creation of the decaying universe we find our selfs in, but rather in context seems to mean the start (or foundation or corner stone) of humankind (disclaimer: I am only a beginner at biblical Greek).

Also, I recall that Adam was put to sleep and had a rib taken out from which Eve was formed (Genesis 2:22-23). And following in Genesis 2:24 we see something familiar, which the NIV translates as:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Which seems to convey support for the principle of what Jesus was saying in Mark 10:6, which I take to be Christs purpose there, and the Holy Spirit's purpose in Genesis 2:22-23.

I also observe, that biblical books of prophecy are not written in the same form of the historical books of the bible, but have symbolism (like animals and beasts representing empires in both Daniel and Revelation) and even riddles (such as the 70 sevens of Daniel chapter 9). But none of bears on the question of them being true or not.

Prophetic books get the message God wants across, and yet, He does not usually choose to inform us through literal historical narratives on these occasions.

Seems to me, the books that are historical were the ones written by eye witnesses, or at least those who interviewed the live witnesses. The books more entirely dependent on the Holy Spirit are usually not historical in form.

That being said, it seems to me that the early chapters in Genesis were not composed by eye witnesses, thus I would not expect them to be historical in form, so much as they are similar to prophecy (only telling about the past rather than the future).

Yes I think the Tree of Life is a real thing. Just as I believe the Whore of Babylon is a real thing. I'm just not sure if the one was really a tree, or the other will really be an individual woman. But I believe that what God says about them is true and something we should learn from, even if we do not know the kinds of details a literal history would afford us.