I’ve mentioned John H Walton’s contribution to the interpretation of Genesis several times before on this blog. I won’t explain his thesis again in any detail, but in essence it’s the understanding than the creation account of Genesis is intended to be literal, but literal concerning principally the function of creation rather than its material existence. It is about how God organised the Universe as his temple, with man as his image (in the sense of temple-image) and priest. This privileged calling for man is reflected in the fact that creation’s function is described in relationship to humanity’s needs – the heavens as his calendar for planting, the vegetation as his food, the animals as his subjects and so on.
Because of this, the Genesis account cannot be said to be opposed to scientific findings because it is not describing the same things – or more properly, it is describing the same things, but from a radically different viewpoint. Walton even allows Genesis to describe a literal, chronological week – though not one in which God forms all matter de novo (he does this – but not in the Genesis account), but one in which he assigns everything its function and order.