Why and How Did you Kill God?

[Arkilogue]

Then you have plants on a sunless Earth for an aeon. Yep, that rescues the story. Try the rain windows next.

Which parts are meant to be metaphorical and allegory, and which literal? Is there a metric by which to tell the difference? And the bonus question: what are these parts metaphors and allegories for?

I don't think "earth" is this planet, nor any planet at all. More important is the relative perspective given, knowing the geocentric paradigm of the time: You have a solid "earth" central to a spherical heaven (the stars where thought to be pin holes in a spherical fabric around the earth at a fixed distance) with a space created between them.

I've found the most utility in viewing it as all allegory/metaphor, for the structural creation of a universe. I see the biblical account as an abridged re-creation of a very old story, colored by the cultural clothing of the times.

Genesis 1:1 "encodes" for a very specific shape arrangement that you might recognize from older systems.