I think most interpretations of Genesis are eisegesis, including the ones where people throw up their hands in disgust and say it is just myth.
Scholars do not throw up their hands and say Genesis is a myth. They demonstrate it's literally mythic and like all other creation myths is taken from other sources. It is a creation myth rather than a history.
It closely follows other myths that are from a similar geography and time.
"Genesis is an example of a
creation myth, a type of literature telling of the first appearance of humans, the stories of ancestors and heroes, and the origins of culture, cities and so forth. The most notable examples are found in the work of Greek historians of the 6th century BC: their intention was to connect notable families of their own day to a distant and heroic past, and in doing so they did not distinguish between
myth,
legend, and facts."
Book of Genesis - Wikipedia
"Borrowing themes from
Mesopotamian mythology, but adapting them to the
Israelite people's
belief in one God, the first major comprehensive draft of the
Pentateuch (the series of five books which begins with Genesis and ends with
Deuteronomy) was composed in the late 7th or the 6th century BCE (the
Jahwist source) and was later expanded by other authors (the
Priestly source) into a work very like Genesis as known today. The two sources can be identified in the creation narrative: Priestly and Jahwistic.The combined narrative is a critique of the
Mesopotamian theology of creation: Genesis affirms
monotheism and denies
polytheism."
"
Comparative mythology provides historical and cross-cultural perspectives for
Jewish mythology. Both sources behind the Genesis creation narrative borrowed themes from
Mesopotamian mythology, but adapted them to
their belief in one God, establishing a monotheistic creation in opposition to the polytheistic creation myth of
ancient Israel's neighbors."
"Still, Genesis 1 bears similarities to the
Baal Cycle of Israel's neighbor,
Ugarit"
"Genesis 2 has close parallels with a second Mesopotamian myth, the
Atra-Hasis epic – parallels that in fact extend throughout
Genesis 2–11, from the Creation to the
Flood and its aftermath. The two share numerous plot-details (e.g. the divine garden and the role of the first man in the garden, the creation of the man from a mixture of earth and divine substance, the chance of immortality, etc.), and have a similar overall theme: the gradual clarification of man's relationship with God(s) and animals."
Genesis creation narrative - Wikipedia
"As scholar of
Jewish studies,
Jon D. Levenson, puts it:
How much history lies behind the story of Genesis? Because the action of the primeval story is not represented as taking place on the plane of ordinary human history and has so many affinities with ancient mythology, it is very far-fetched to speak of its narratives as historical at all.
Another scholar,
Conrad Hyers, summed up the same thought by writing, "A
literalist interpretation of the Genesis accounts is inappropriate, misleading, and unworkable [because] it presupposes and insists upon a kind of literature and intention that is not there."
Joel Baden (Professor of Hebrew Bible Yale University) breaks down the 2 creation accounts and demonstrates they are contradictory. Straight up. His actual point here is that it's supposed to be this way to show religious pluralism which encourages discussion. It's an account of 2 schools of thought from this time.
His claim is that the different voices makes it challenging. Becoming something more than a prop but as something with some philosophical value. Interesting. No Gods involved however.
These are clearly the philosophies, thoughts and science of a group of people around 700 BCE.
They were just getting into monotheism, likely due to the Persians who were occupying their land but decided to allow them to set up their own religion and laws. We still see echoes of a larger group of Gods. Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou is an expert on this period and explains it nicely in several lectures.
