The debate at that link is mostly about what may have happened around 100kya, way too early for the Cain/Abel story to work without being full of anachronisms.
Cain vs Abel is a pretty good parable for the conflicts of around 10kya, though, between early agriculturalists and pastoralists. That's a conflict that was still a major issue 5kya (or arguably even 0kya? the Hutu were a farming ethnicity and the Tutsi a pastoralist one...).
I don't think God describing something that happened to premodern tribesmen in a way that they can understand makes it "inaccurate" or "not literal."
I haven't been a Christian for decades now, but when I was (and even still) I always found this to be a pretty easy way to get around the scientific problems with literal readings of Genesis. Jesus regularly talks in parables! Telling a story whose details aren't literally true in order to aid understanding of a deeper truth was like God's entire M.O.! What else would we expect? "Okay, before primordial nucleosyntheis, when the cosmic microwave background hadn't even red-shifted yet, the photons were ... are you following any of this? ... okay, forget it, just write down: 'Let there be light'."
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The debate at that link is mostly about what may have happened around 100kya, way too early for the Cain/Abel story to work without being full of anachronisms.
Cain vs Abel is a pretty good parable for the conflicts of around 10kya, though, between early agriculturalists and pastoralists. That's a conflict that was still a major issue 5kya (or arguably even 0kya? the Hutu were a farming ethnicity and the Tutsi a pastoralist one...).
I haven't been a Christian for decades now, but when I was (and even still) I always found this to be a pretty easy way to get around the scientific problems with literal readings of Genesis. Jesus regularly talks in parables! Telling a story whose details aren't literally true in order to aid understanding of a deeper truth was like God's entire M.O.! What else would we expect? "Okay, before primordial nucleosyntheis, when the cosmic microwave background hadn't even red-shifted yet, the photons were ... are you following any of this? ... okay, forget it, just write down: 'Let there be light'."
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