Fascinating reading. To some extent, I would like to combine all five possibilities. I take Genesis 1-3 as descriptions of how things began - but not as explanations which will satisfy the current state of modern, empirical science. To enter that particular debate seems to me to be as misconceived as it is futile. I tend to think empirical science is on the very margins of what can be called science when it makes assertions about what happened 2.5 - 4 billion years ago. It becomes just as much of a faith exercise to say that life began through self-generated causes as it is to say that life began because God created it. In the last century, many of the certainties that governed science were overturned, and I’m sure this will continue into the future.

It’s therefore, for me, a statement of faith to say that I believe in a God who created the world in an orderly fashion, and that the created world was in itself a good place, with life that was created inherently good, as opposed to a chaotic place where life was governed by inherently amoral or evil forces (as seen in other creation stories). The Genesis account is mythical as opposed to scientific in the modern sense of the word, but for me, it is myth which does have a historical basis. That isn’t a contradiction, but it is a statement of faith. Like the scientific explanation, there is a good deal of evidence to support this view - but not all the evidence will satisfy the current explanations of empirical science.

I don’t take the view that Genesis, or the Christian faith, rests within a self-contained mythical view of life disconnected from life as it may actually be - outside its own mythical world. I don’t see anywhere that we are expected to believe in such a disconnected belief system. Rather the opposite, the Christian faith arose because it contended with historical realities, on an international and personal level, and the bible sets out the history of the unique, particular and historical way in which God sought to contend with those realities - reaching their climactic conclusion in Christ.

The Christian faith does provide a belief system which understands the world in a particular way, but it’s not mythical in the sense of being disconnected from reality. Rather, it chimes very much with the way things are, and provides a satisfying way of addressing those realities from within the perspective which it brings.

And now for the seven seals and the eighth scroll?