Doubting Didymus

I agree, with respect to the biblical interpretation aspects of this debate. However, theism-and-evolution is a perfect topic for this forum, and we've almost had it break out. Denis, for example, has suggested that atheists pervert Darwins theory, implying (I assume) that we have something wrong in our understanding of the very foundation of modern biology. I've asked him what he means, and would love to continue that discussion. (I'f I'm wrong about something, I usually want to be the first to know, but I'll settle for second.)

excreationist

NightFox:
Yes, parts of the Bible such as early Genesis contain a spiritual message - but they also seem to make claims about history.
Apparently ancient Jewish scholars (perhaps at about the time much of Genesis was being written down) used the Bible (like the genealogies) to calculate the age of the earth. That forms the basis for the Jewish calender. It seems they genuinely believed that that was the age of the earth, (or at least the time when Adam was "created") rather than it being based on a non-literal historical account.
Hugh Ross's site Reasons To Believe gives five examples of people who didn't think the days in Genesis were literal. (I think those people were in the minority at the time)
Some places say that Augustine (given as an example) believed that all things were created together, instantaneously.
http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/199804/0345.html
The earliest person mentioned there is Josephus.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_date.htm
Says
"estimates of the age of the Earth and the rest of the universe:"
"5555 BCE: A data produced by Josephus, a Jew from the 1st century CE."
"5481 BCE: A second date estimated by Josephus in the 1st century CE."
Maybe he thought each day of creation was a century or something.
The reference may be questionable though:
"Young’s Analytical Concordance of the Holy Bible, 8th Edition," "Creation" entry, (1939). Cited in Don Batten, "Which is the recent aberration? Old-Earth or Young-Earth Belief?," Creation, Vol. 24, #1, Pages 24 to 27. See: http://www.answersingenesis.org
Anyway, I think there is a lot of evidence that early Hebrews and early Christians (e.g. Jesus and Paul) believed in taking things historically which you would think would just be non-literal (perhaps based on a little truth).
You said that Genesis came out of an oral traditional... surely whether it was intended to be literal (historical) or not would have been passed down too... (like how we know that Santa is kind of historical and real - in a pretend way)

Jobar:
I think that if you want your interpretation of Genesis to be compatible with modern science, it needs to be non-literal... but I think a literal interpretation (not necessarily the AIG) is closer to the original message the authors were intending to convey.

It would be good if parts of this thread could just be moved instead of just having the discussion having to end like that. (I doubt that Denis would start his own thread in another forum that deals with my posts here.)