“Many modern scholars classify the blue Biblical stories of Creation, the Fall and the Flood as myths by which a primitive people sought to explain their origins. Because of similarities between the Genesis account and the Babylonian creation myths, some have assumed that the Hebrews copied their account from the Babylonians. This assumption overlooks the possibility that both the Hebrew and Babylonian accounts may have been derived from an older common source. But the Babylonian and other Pagan creation myths invariably deal with the ordering of a pre-existing world, while the Genesis saga relates the creation of the earth and its order from nothing (exnihilo). What is most important from a Christian standpoint, Genesis introduces us to the Creator and to the present human predicament, the moral problems associated with human relations and the continuing struggle between right and wrong. It is significant that the story of Cain slaying his brother Abel anticipates the demonic violence which has characterized much of the lamentable record of mankind.”
(Richard Goyne, Roots and Branches of Christian Belief, 1)