[imported_Wicked Steve]

The issue I have with biblical apologists is that they so rarely seem to take into account the time when the Bible was written. I hear people equating the big bang with "In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth," and that six days was a metaphor for several billions of years...but these are relatively new ideas. Thousands of years ago, when the Bible was written and compiled, who had any idea about the big bang theory, or the age of the universe? Doesn't it seem far, far more likely that they literally believed what they said, and were too busy recording what they thought was the truth than to deal in symbolism and analogy, especially given that, for many centuries, most people were uneducated and wouldn't understand that sort of thing? If they thought creation really took a long, long time, why wouldn't they just write that it did? Or were they trying to make all-powerful God seem even more powerful by making him work faster?