That's right, the idea came from the desire to "make the Bible fit." While I'm convinced there is no contradiction between scientific fact and Bible fact, there are often problems when we bring our conclusions to the table and then try to get the facts to fit the conclusions. Far too many of the ideas that people of our time have bought into as discoveries of science are heavy on speculation and interpretation and light on facts, especially in the area of ancient things that cannot truly be tested by science. It certainly is not necessary to rework Geneis 1 to fit science facts, the facts do not conflict, but the conclusions drawn by materialists are another matter. And truly, no amount of reworking is going to persuade the materialists that the Bible is authoritative, the conflict between faith in God and faith in anything else won't be resolved by straining Genesis one into a parable of vast time consuming processes.
The idea of reading it figuratively came directly from the desire of religious people to make the Bible fit into scientific discoveries, like the time scale of 15 billion years for the age of the universe.
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