The idea that Genesis (1-11) is merely literary has to be rejected out of hand as in direct contradiction to our understanding of the Bible as the infallible word of God.
The framework theory is one of the least defensible positions when we understand that it is based upon the assumption that there not only may be a long period of time in Genesis 1 and the sequence of days, but actually that the sequence does not matter. It simply is not credible that God gave us this text with such rich detail and sequential development merely that we would infer from it his providential direction without any specific reference to all of the direct content he has given us within the text!
Even a commonsense reading of the text indicates that it is making historical and sequential claims.
As Pipa says, it contains so many time and sequence markers that it is as though the writer is going out of his way to drive the point that this text relates events that occur in time as we experience time, and with a tempo that we can make sense of given our own experience of the succession of days.
The unitary construction of the chiasm in Genesis one emphasises the point: this text sits as a unit, self contained, and understandable within its own terms.
