Dear Michael.

Thank you for sharing these insights into the cultural history of Genesis. I am sorry, indeed, that your religious upbringing meant that discovering this information caused a "crisis in faith." Here's the problem: most followers of the Abrahamic branch of world religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and their subsequent spinoffs like Mormonism and Rastafari) make the mistake of confusing "faith" with "belief." But these are quite different. Beliefs are inherently propositions: "I believe that..." This means that they are ideological claims, which, whether adherents like it or not, are subject to disproof by further evidence. Faith, conversely, is intuitive and nonverbal. It more closely aligns with the original meaning of the Greek word "pistis" which is "trust," not "belief." To trust in God is far different from "believing" in one's own (culture-bound) concepts of God. And far less vulnerable to factual refutation, since trusting in God does not presuppose knowing anything at all about God. For "God" is simply a (western) personification of the Sacred, and the Sacred, by definition, is unknowable. Have faith.