Number one, who ever translated this portion did a bad job, or else God wasn't talking about the desert. Maybe it's cursed for a reason other than man, which I suppose is understandable, but hardly the fault of anyone else, as no other creature is credited with having free will.

With regard to a literal interpretation of the bible vs. a parable interpretation, I tend to lean toward the parable side. Makes sense. Jesus taught in parables. You can't take the knowledge of the ancients and assume it is the same as today. Take Jonah. The only body of water near Ninevah is the Tigris river. The Tigris flows south to the Arabian gulf (I'm in Iraq, so I refer to it by the local name). It is so far in land that there is no way a whale could swim up the river to deposit a man there. Seen it with my own eyes. Not going to work, unless the flood was going on at the same time. Here's another one - what about the incestuous relationship with Cain and Abel? Both had wives, correct? Let's skip ahead to the post flood. Now we have three couples creating the entire population of the earth? I'm not about to do the math on the number of people who have ever existed vs. the chance of a genetic mutation, but it seems to me that the human species would have died out a long time ago if it descended from 3 pairs. Consider this: how good is your memory? Ever play the game "telephone"? It's hard to get a simple sentence correct when passed around a room. There was no written language back then. Is it not possible that somewhere along the line the story was embellished a bit, perhaps in order to teach a lesson? Was the world so much worse back then than it is today, and that's the reason God isn't inflicting big time punishments on people? When was the last person turned into a pillar of salt for not following God's rules? Seems to me that there's a lot of people not following God's rules and they seem to be doing just fine. Bottom line, it's a historical account to a degree, but mostly it's a work of fiction, just like the tales of other primitive people. Still goes on today. I have people telling me that there are sharks in the canal. I suppose it is possible, but highly doubtful.