The Book of Genesis is full of profound meaning, but many of these fundamentalist-literalists can't find the woods for the trees. What is important about the Garden story is not that a snake talked, or that a literal Adam and Eve lived in a physical garden in India, or Ethiopia, or wherever some people think it was. It tells us how Satan and temptation usually work: Not through threats and brute force, but with soothing language which plays on our hopes, fears and weaknesses. (Sounds like 0bama, doesn't it?) It tells us that man is incorrigibly, hereditarily prone to evil, and sin is deadly, but that God will provide a remedy in due time. It tells us that we are free moral agents, ("knowing good and evil"), unlike animals. (Even most evo-fanatics realize that people are fundamentally mentally unlike animals, even apes.)
I was fortunate enough to receive a good education in literature, where I was taught that great truths about the human condition can be conveyed by good fiction. I was shown how to read through all the narrative filler, character and plot details, etc. and find the meat, the deeper meaning. Whatever else the Bible is, it is great literature. The Book of Job, for example, is full of pages of poetic detail, but it really conveys simple fundamental truths about man's condition and relation to God, like 1) It's wrong to blame God for your misfortune or question his actions. There are things affecting us which are beyond the ability of human intelligence to comprehend. (Interestingly, atheists always challenge theists with Pharisaical questions like: "If God is good and infinitely powerful, why does he allow evil?" I would like to say to them: "That's not your business. Your business is to control your own behavior and show love toward others.") 2) Bad things happen to good people. Satan loves to pick on good people. (Basically, Satan in Job is saying man is not a moral agent capable of sincere love, but an animal who likes those who treat him well. That's precisely the kind of cynicism and behaviorism which Marxists and radical materialists like Skinner and Dawkins preach.) 3) Again, God will provide relief in due time.
Jesus, of course, told lots of stories which were clearly fictional, about generic kings, fathers and sons, etc. They were no less true because they did not refer to specific literal people.
You hit the nail on the head, Hellbender. While I do believe in a literal Adam and Eve, I also believe, as you do, that there is a deeper meaning behind the story. C.S. Lewis called this the mythic element. You understand literature and you know that calling something a myth does not imply that it did not happen. It simply means that there is more meaning to the story than just the facts. Many of the fundamentalists insist on a wooden, hyper-literal interpretation of the Bible that ignores the deeper meaning behind a mere recitation of facts.
Jesus spoke in parables and, while the parables contains deep truth, some of them may not have literally happened. That doesn't make the parables any less true.
For what it's worth, I do not doubt that Jesus and other Biblical performed real miracles. However, most of the miracle stories involve more than just a recounting of history. The story of the centurion and the woman who touched Jesus' cloak come to mind.
I'm certainly glad that you're on this thread.