I. Is Genesis 1 a narrative or poetry or another kind of literature?

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  Russell Grigg explains the different genres of the Bible including poetry, parables and prophecy. His conclusion is as follows:

“We return to the question which forms the title of this article. Should Genesis be taken literally?

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Answer: If we apply the normal principles of biblical exegesis (ignoring pressure to make the text conform to the evolutionary prejudices of our age), it is overwhelmingly obvious that Genesis was meant to be taken in a straightforward, obvious sense as an authentic, literal, historical record of what actually happened.” (from Russell Grigg “Should Genesis be taken literally?)

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II. Is there a contradiction between chapters 1 and 2?

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  “Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are not therefore separate contradictory accounts of creation. Chapter 1 is the ‘big picture’ and Chapter 2 is a more detailed account of the creation of Adam and Eve and day six of creation.

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  The final word on this matter, however, should really be given to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In Matthew chapter 19, verses 4 and 5, the Lord is addressing the subject of marriage, and says: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”

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  Notice how in the very same statement, Jesus refers to both Genesis 1 (verse 27b: ‘male and female he created them’) and Genesis 2 (verse 24: ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’). Obviously, by combining both in this way, He in no way regarded them as separate, contradictory accounts.” (from Don Batten “Genesis contradictions?”)

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III. Can a “day” in Genesis 1 mean millions or billions of years?

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  “Evening and/or morning accompanying the days means they each had a start and a finish. The word “evening” occurs 49 times and the word “morning” 187 times, always in the literal sense.1 “Evening” plus “morning” without “day”, 38 times outside Genesis 1—always conveys a normal-length day. “Evening” plus “morning” with “day”, 23 times outside Genesis 1—always conveys normal-length days.2”

Exodus 20:11 indicates that the Bible meant the days to be literal 24-hour days. (from Lucien Tuinstra “Genesis 1: YÔM ≠ eon”)

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It also should be noted that even if “day” could be millions or billions of years, the order of creation in Genesis 1 is different from the Big Bang Theory and evolution.

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IV. The relationship between Genesis and other creation accounts

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  “By contrast the narrative of Genesis 1 begins with the one true God who is there at the beginning; there is a clear Creator-creature distinction; there is a pure and exalted tone about Genesis 1, untainted with the crudities of mythology and showing forth a transcendent God. Hence pagan mythology is basically all of one genre; Genesis is in a very different league...

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  “Accepting Genesis 1 as the true and factual creation story would therefore explain how increasingly garbled versions of creation circulated independently in differing forms among various ethnic groups in antiquity, and eventually came to be attached to debased, polytheistic myths at some early stage in the post-Flood era. Meanwhile, Genesis preserves the pristine and pure form of the creation narrative.”

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(from Murray Adamthwaite “Is Genesis 1 Just Reworked Babylonian Myth?”)

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V. The importance of Genesis

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  “Everything in the Bible is inseparably bound up with its first book, Genesis. This is because Genesis gives us the origin and initial explanation of all major biblical doctrines.”

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  Russell Grigg gives the following examples: theology, anthropology, sin, salvation, angelology, ecclesiology, and eschatology all have their roots in Genesis.

(from Russell Grigg “Genesis -- the seedbed of all Christian doctrine”)

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  See also the importance of death coming after the fall. We cannot fit millions or billions of years of death anywhere in Genesis 1 without destroying the gospel.

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VI. The Age of the Earth

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Chris Hardy and Robert Carter discuss the details and reach this conclusion:

“If the traditional historic date of 587 BC or 586 BC for the Captivity is correct, the earth cannot be more than 7,680 years old (table 4), having been created between 5665 BC and 3822 BC.”

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(from Chris Hardy and Robert Carter “The biblical minimum and maximum age of the earth”)

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VII. “Kinds” in Genesis 1

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  “Ten times in the first chapter of Genesis we are told that the plants and animals created by God were to reproduce ‘after their kinds’. (Genesis 1:11, 12a, 12b, 21a, 21b, 24a, 24b, 25a, 25b, 25c) There could be an abundance of variation within each kind, but never could one kind bring forth a different kind. Thus, an unlimited evolution was prohibited and prevented by the Creator right from the start. . .”

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  “It may well be that clues to the original kinds may be derived from hybridization studies. Those which can form hybrids may possibly be varieties of the same original kind, even though they may seem very different now.

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  “Man’s attempt to classify plants and animals is sometimes arbitrary. Therefore, the original kinds may have been in some cases what we now arbitrarily define as species; in others as genera. In many cases, in view of the high probability of rapid variation after the Flood it may well have been what we now call the ‘families’ (dogs, cats, horses, bears, etc.). This is an area for potentially important creationist research, through studies of hybridization, post-Flood paleontology, genetics, and molecular biology. In any case, we can be sure that such variation definitely was within the limits of the kind, whatever precisely that may have been.” (from Henry M. Morris “Looking at the original kinds”)

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Because there were only “kinds” of animals, Adam would have had no problem naming all the kinds in one day.  (from Russell M. Grigg “Naming the animals: all in a day’s work for Adam”)