So, given that the earth is old;  given that animals existed before the second verse in Genesis--which seems to be the only likely explanation that explains the dinosaurs, we can set aside the earth's past before the Genesis account--God didn't see fit to share that with us--and we can look at the work of God as he begins to unfold a plan to create something brand new.  A man in HIS OWN IMAGE.  (A man that can hold the breath of God--the Holy Spirit.)

But before He does this, he prepares the earth to receive plants, and to restore animal life to the dry land.  The account is progressive, rational, and orderly.  The critical issue is light.  The critical purpose is to create a perfect place for people to live.  Everything that God did, he did for the good of man.  At each point in the account, God pronounces it "Good."  The entire universe, the entire earth is a perfect place created for the good of the human race.

I don't give much credence to dating past life by the use of strata.  It isn't consistent.  But two things I find that have validity are ice plugs from the pole--where pressure has laid down layers upon layers of ice, one layer after another over millenniums, compressed into thin bands, and where you can "see" the years that volcanoes have deposited ash.  The other is carbon dating--rate of decay.  If the world isn't old, both of those methods would not be dependable.   So far, they are.

So God let the light in again.  And the earth perked up.  Then he "...divided the light from the darkness...and called the light Day, and the darkness...Night."  Gen. 4-5.  So rotation had to be occurring.  The sun had to be present for the rotation to give daytime and nighttime.  "...the evening and the morning were the first day."  I have no idea what the rotational speed of the earth was.  Neither does anyone else.  Was it 24 hours.  Maybe.  But who knows.  Don't get hung up on that.

The purpose of what I am writing is so that you can see that you don't need to defend Genesis.  It is true.  Completely true.  And it is not in disagreement with what we know for sure scientifically.  Scientific "theory" is another thing altogether.