Your arguments are all apologetic nonsense. You simply cannot reconcile the first few chapters of Genesis with each other as they contradict themselves. All your attempts at accurate exegesis fail.
???? I don't think you really read my post. There is nothing "apologetic" about my post. I'm describing the story in the context of ANE creation myths. It's a myth. See my comparisons in this thread to the Phoenician myth, the Enuma Elish, the Abzu, etc. How is approaching the story as a myth "apologetic"? And I wasn't at all reconciling the first two chapters of Genesis. I said nothing of the sort. Of course, the two stories contract each other, they come from different literary sources (P and J). I was disagreeing with your reading of the P story, which I felt did not represent what the text actually said. That's all. Otherwise I totally agree with you.
Genesis is a fairy tale. Get used to it.
You're preaching to the choir. My posts regularly show how things in the OT derive from ANE mythology.
Furthermore, if you have to resort to idioms in translation, you must admit to a fatal problem: "God cannot protect his own book: some versions are better than others." Why is God so pathetic that he cannot protect the very book he inspired through holy whatever to be inspired? If he cared to much to have such a book written, why did he not care so much to protect its integrity? I need an good answer for this. I mean a GOOD answer for this. Excusogetics, don't count. If Bible God wants me to again become a True Believer(tm), then he'd better well give me a reason to be so. Blind and uninformed Faith(tm) don't work for me anymore, and any God worth his salt would appreciate this and do better than Bible-God(tm) has done so far.
Again, same thing. You have misconstrued the purpose of my last post. If you read my post history, you see that I reguarly post on such inconsistencies, textual problems, and the use of legend, myth, and fable in the OT, as well as mythological motifs in the NT.