I really am at a loss to understand this way of thinking. It seems you're just unable to read the words and take them for what they mean. Why? Because they upset a secular theory that atheists rejoice over? Because you think God isn't capable? It's a mystery to me.
As I posted earlier, the Bible contains many different literary styles. Genesis is written as a straightforward historical account. Jesus confirms this twice. Did He lie? Was He confused that day? Trying to trick us? What?
Throw out the creation account, and you can throw out the rest of the Bible, because it's all meaningless. The sin that man brought into the world in the garden never happened, so there's no need for Jesus's redemptive act on the Cross. Evolutionary teaching eliminates all of that.
Ever since Darwin came up with that mess, atheists have exulted over its negation (or so they think) of the foundations of Christianity. Doesn't that kind of hint to you that it's the wrong side for Christians to be on?
The beauty of it is, you don't have to try and wring torturous meanings out of Genesis. God gave it to us to bear witness to His majesty and His creative genius. His intention was not to trick us.
I'm not sure of the location---I'd have to do a search---but somewhere in the Bible is instruction to believe God's wisdom over that of man. I'm aware that refusal to accept evolutionary theory makes me a toothless hick snakehandler in the eyes of some "intellectuals." I couldn't care less.
“Genesis is written as a straightforward historical account. “
Yes. It is VERY clear that God made the animals AFTER he created Adam ...
The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him.
So the LORD God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each living creature was then its name.
“I really am at a loss to understand this way of thinking. It seems you’re just unable to read the words and take them for what they mean”
It’s really simply a matter of believing authority. There are two here, the Catholic Church and the physical sciences, both different magisteriums.
The church doesn’t see Genesis as straight up history and even if it did that wouldn’t preclude evolution (the text just doesn’t say). Good thing too since it was written in an ancient time in a Afro-Asiatic language and in various styles some of which are no longer in use.
I could only read it the best I can anyway but like all one language speakers I impose inappropriate language axioms onto the text (the idea of precise meanings, grammar, syntax etc)
The ancient Christians (Origen, Jerome, Augustin etc) were vastly closer in time and culture and they proposed varying degrees of literal, spiritual and allegorical interpretations. The Church follows them. The older I get the more wise it shows itself.