I'll attempt to answer #3. First above all, humans didnot evolve directly from monkeys. Monkey's, apes, and humans are different groups of primates,and humans are believed to have evolved from a common ancestor with the apes. According to the Paleontologists, biologists, and other scientists who study human evolution, monkey's & apes split off from their common ancestor first. Later in prehistory the apes split off at differing times into the ancestors of gorilla's, chimps, ourang's, a group of prehumans(Australopithicus Afarensis for just one example) who are extinct, and others. The monkies have a tail while apes & humans do not, and the monkies evolved into a bunch of species alive today. So, monkies are not directly related to you and me. Genetically speaking, chimps are!
Now that that's out of the way, I can hopefully explain about what I think these passages in Genesis mean. Honestly, I am a theo-evolutionist like yourself and like you I was also a believer in "the literal bible" and a christian. While I still believe in God(in a sense), this passage to me is mythical. That is, it attempts to explain from the point of view of the ancient Jews the origin of humans with a particular god playing the protagonist's role. There is some truth in what the passage implies about how the ancient Jews saw themselves and their god, but that truth is not necessarilly literal or factual. The ancient's words for clay and breath of the nostrils of God is very poetic. While 'clay' may have been a word like 'dust', in which the ancient's recognised(ingeneously?) that we are made up of stuff from the ground(elements?), 'breath' is a word that means 'spirit' & means life from God. IOW there is a passage in the Bible somewhere that implies that our human life(spirit) came from the eternal & will return to the eternal. We get our animal and vegetable product to sustain ourselves from the ground(clay), and we have our life(breath) ultimately from God. Therefor, to me this passage doesn't create a problem with God & evolution in the same boat.
[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 12-20-2003]
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