Jane, I'll answer with a question:
Does the soterological burden depend on literal events, or on a typological representation of the truth about humanity? Does the sentence "Since sin came into the world by a man, so ....." require that both men (Adam and Christ) be literal, or is it possible for the first man to be figurative, and latter to be literal. Is the emphasis on consistent "literalness" not an anachronistic approach, that is, forcing modern categories on a decidely pre-modern script?

Just asking.

Paul referring to Adam isn't conclusive either way. He obviously was going to refer to the story everyone knew, regardless of whether it was literally true or not. Given that even 2000 years ago the events of the fall would have taken place far back into time immemorial, Paul's generation would have no better way than us to ascertain the little details of exactly how it happened. None of this means the Biblical story isn't entirely correct, but believing in Adam and Eve as 'literary characters' doesn't necessitate the further step that our professors take; i.e. that the fall never happened at all.

All I'm talking about is the unjust, specious, and culturally-destructive manner in which the scope of these issues has been narrowed by the militant YECers among us.

Also, why can't Paul refer to a figurative prototype of all humanity, to dscribe/illustrate our sinful state, and the refer to Christ as the Saviour?

Another question though - and this one is on a different level. Will it still work if you placed Adam in a different time and context, keep him real but makethe story more mythological (in the good sense of the word, as in true myth)? Geneticists think that all humanity today did have a common ancestor, ca. 200 000 years ago. So lets run with that for awhile: How about a 200 000 year old Adam, as opposed to a 6000 year old Adam? I'd like to see a response to that approach. (btw I am approaching this as a subject for discussion, not a defense/attack in an argument).

Jane, Charles... From where I sit it seems that you just seem unable to break through the inherent modernism in your reasoning.

Is there poetic value to all the numerals? Is there some really wild mathematical chiasm going on?

These genealogies are highly structured and not meant to enable one to calculate the age of the earth. Both Gen 5 and Gen 11 have 10 generations, and conclude with a father who has three sons.

Problems with taking them literally: (1) Why would Gen 10:25 say that in Peleg's days the earth was divided, if in fact all his fathers were still alive?

(2) Noah and Abraham would be contemporaries,

and Seth (Noah's son) would have survived Abraham.

The flood would have occurred only 292 years before Abraham (c. 2457 BC), but we have texts from this time period (Epic of Gilgamesh) for which the flood was already ancient history. Indeed, we have flourishing civilizations in the third millennium.

Scripture nowhere else adds up these numbers and presents the age of the earth (though some pseudepigraphical works do). It therefore teaches us that this is not their purpose.

But let's keep this protracted discussion going, until the list of scripture you've thrown under the bus is complete.

The reason is the structure of Paul's set-up. He's saying Christ is comparable to Adam. He's as real as Adam, as efficacious as Adam, as federal as Adam, etc. If Adam is none of those things in reality, then neither is Christ by Paul's math.

The point on Gen 10:25 is simple. It says, "in his days the earth was divided." What does that mean, especially given that--on a literalist reading--Peleg's "days" were also the days of all his fathers and grandfathers going back to the flood? Why are they uniquely called Peleg's days?

I think that Seth and Noah would have been contemporaries (so curiously, you have the biblical insistence that Noah is the only righteous man, when most of his godly forefathers, including Seth, are alive).