How Do I Read Genesis?

When I was growing up I read Genesis as an account — not quite an historical account, though — that was wrought with metaphor, but acted as a guide for viewing the world and for my beliefs. This changed as I grew older, and in high school, when I began to read it as literature for courses, I read it as an ur-text, as a text full of tropes, stories, myths, and language that would be referred to or incorporated by later writers. I also understood the book as a mode for starting lively discussions on various topics: good and evil, fate and free will, etc. As I became more engaged in cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and rhetoric, I began to view Genesis as more of a cultural artifact, and I have begun to read it with a series of questions in mind:

Who were the authors of this text? What was their situation? Their privileges? Who controlled and molded this text into what it is today?

How is the treatment of others in this text fair or unfair? How has this text been used to control people or groups of people?

How was this text used as an act with which to define the world in a certain way?

What values and behaviors are encoded in this text? Whose values are these? How are certain power structures reinforced with this text?