The Genesis Problem
By Rev. Robert Barron
I’m continually amazed how often the "problem” of Genesis comes up in my
work of evangelization and apologetics.  What I mean is the way people
struggle with the seemingly bad science that is on display in the
opening chapters of the first book of the Bible.  How can anyone believe
that God made the visible universe in six days, that all the species
were created at the same time, that light existed before the sun and
moon, etc., etc?  How can believers possibly square the naïve cosmology
of Genesis with the textured and sophisticated theories of Newton,
Darwin, Einstein, and Stephen Hawking?
One of the most important principles of Catholic Biblical interpretation
is that the reader of the Scriptural texts must be sensitive to the
genre or literary type of the text with which he is dealing.  Just as it
would be counter-indicated to read Moby Dick as history or "The Waste
Land” as social science, so it is silly to interpret, say, "The Song of
Songs” as journalism or the Gospel of Matthew as a spy novel.  By the
same token, it is deeply problematic to read the opening chapters of
Genesis as a scientific treatise.  If I can borrow an insight from Fr.
George Coyne, a Jesuit priest and astrophysicist, no Biblical text can
possibly be "scientific” in nature, since "science,” as we understand
it, first emerged some fourteen centuries after the composition of the
last Biblical book.  The author of Genesis simply wasn’t doing what
Newton, Darwin, Einstein, and Hawking were doing; he wasn’t attempting
to explain the origins of things in the characteristically modern
manner, which is to say, on the basis of empirical observation, testing
of hypotheses, marshalling of evidence, and experimentation.  Therefore,
to maintain that the opening chapters of Genesis are "bad science” is a
bit like saying "The Iliad” is bad history or "The Chicago Tribune” is
not very compelling poetry.
So what precisely was that ancient author trying to communicate?  Once
we get past the "bad science” confusion, the opening of the Bible gives
itself to us in all of its theological and spiritual power.  Let me
explore just a few dimensions of this lyrical and evocative text.  We
hear that Yahweh brought forth the whole of created reality through
great acts of speech:  "Let there be light,’ and there was light; ‘Let
the dry land appear’ and so it was.”  In almost every mythological
cosmology in the ancient world, God or the gods establish order through
some act of violence.  They conquer rival powers or they impose their
will on some recalcitrant matter.  (How fascinating, by the way, that we
still largely subscribe to this manner of explanation, convinced that
order can be maintained only through violence or the threat of
violence).  But there is none of this in the Biblical account.  God
doesn’t subdue some rival or express his will through violence.  Rather,
through a sheerly generous and peaceful act of speech, he gives rise to
the whole of the universe.  This means that the most fundamental truth
of things—the metaphysics that governs reality at the deepest level—is
peace and non-violence.  Can you see how congruent this is with Jesus’
great teachings on non-violence and enemy love in the Sermon on the
Mount?  The Lord is instructing his followers how to live in accord with
the elemental grain of the universe.
Secondly, we are meant to notice the elements of creation that are
explicitly mentioned in this account:  the heavens, the stars, the sun,
the moon, the earth itself, the sea, the wide variety of animals that
roam the earth.  Each one of these was proposed by various cultures in
the ancient world as objects of worship.  Many of the peoples that
surrounded Israel held sky, stars, sun, moon, the earth, and various
animals to be gods.  By insisting that these were, in fact, created by
the true God, the author of Genesis was, not so subtly, de-throning
false claimants to divinity and disallowing all forms of idolatry.  Mind
you, the author of Genesis never tires of reminding us that everything
that God made is good (thus holding off all forms of dualism,
Manichaeism and Gnosticism), but none of these good things is the
ultimate good.
A third feature that we should notice is the position and role of Adam,
the primal human, in the context of God’s creation.  He is given the
responsibility of naming the animals , "all the birds of heaven and all
the wild beasts” (Gen. 2:20).  The Church fathers read this as follows:
naming God’s creatures in accord with the intelligibility placed in
them by the Creator, Adam is the first scientist and philosopher, for he
is, quite literally, "cataloguing” the world he sees around him.  (Kata
Logon means "according to the word”).  From the beginning, the author
is telling us, God accords to his rational creatures the privilege of
participating, through their own acts of intelligence, in God’s
intelligent ordering of the world.  This is why, too, Adam is told, not
to dominate the world, but precisely to "cultivate and care for it”
(Gen. 2: 16), perpetuating thereby the non-violence of the creative act.
These are, obviously, just a handful of insights among the dozens that
can be culled from this great text.  My hope is that those who are
tripped up by the beginning of the book of Genesis can make a small but
essential interpretive adjustment and see these writings as they were
meant to be seen:  not as primitive science, but as exquisite theology.
http://www.wordonfire.org/Written-Word/articles-commentaries/February-2011/The-Genesis-Problem.aspx

Then, there is still my argument that this way of thinking about Genesis
(which I like BTW) is not applied to the rest of the bible. Gay
marriage for example (without starting an argument). Could/should we not
look at Leviticus and come to the same conclusion?

And if it was 'fact' as reported to people with a primitive frame of reference, how can it be accepted as truth - except by faith?

As an empirical question, it can't be anything but a metaphor.