Please help me keep this in GQ as I am looking for a factual answer about the generally held beliefs of fundamentalists who interpret the Bible literally. I am not looking to discuss challenges to those beliefs.
Genesis describes events that occurred before man was on the earth. AFAIK even fundamentalists do not believe that there are any documents written directly by God, except for maybe the 10 commandments. If one is to believe that the writing of Genesis is literally true, then where does one believe that it materialized from? No one existed to document the creation of heaven and earth. AFAIK Adam did not keep a diary. So who is thought to have written all of this with such authority?
On a related note, what is fundamentalist belief about how antedeluvian histories survived the flood?