JediGirl makes a good point. (JG, bumped ya like you requested!) Faith is not faith if you believe that you have tangible proof--why do we need to try to reconcile every verse in the Bible with the scientific & historic evidence out there? If we need to make reconcilations in order to be comfortable with our belief in the Bible, that would signify a lack of faith on our part.
To me, Genesis means more than a simple account of the creation of the world. It tells me that every human, every generation since prehistoric times has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In other words, we all repeat the story of Adam and Eve in our lives--we do such destructive things and we throw away so much good for only a simple piece of forbidden fruit.
As for its scientific and historical value, I am extremely hesistant to conjure up theories without any proof, although I've certainly thought about it. One thing, though: we all too often miss the spiritual point of those views! The first two chapters of Genesis are a good summary of the destructiveness of sin, and how easily our human natures give into it.
What we do with our personal lives and how we treat others around us is far more important than the degree of "literalness" of our belief in the Bible--read through the books of Romans and Corinthians to see how we should behave in the world and in the church.
Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.
One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.
The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him.
Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
I have a "take" on the subject of Noah and the patriarchs, etc. that is an extension of this one - but I thought it might be better to limit the subject matter of this thread to origins. Do you think I ought to kick off another thread next week?
How profoundly true. The problem I have with Hegel's dialectic, Marx's adaptation of Hegel, and Darwin's theory of natural selection or "the survival of the fittest" is that they teach man is perfectable, that the process of history will produce a "new man." This is just plain wrong - man is inherently flawed. The Founders, especially John Adams, understood this, which is why the Constitution contains so many checks and balances to keep our human natures from doing too much damage through our human government.