To me it appears that there is some connections between
Metamorphoses and Genesis beyond simply that they both were influenced by
Timaeus. I see that argument is no different that people claiming that both "Matthew" and "Luke" independently integrated "Q" with Mark. Nonsense. Two people don't independently make dozens of the same choices over and over again.
Something is going on here.
Obviously the first option to consider is the dependence of
Metamorphoses on Genesis. That's the simple explanation, and by any timeline is certainly possible. If true, this has certain interesting implications for our understanding of the origins of Christianity. For example it also appears likely that the Jewish Sibylline Oracles had gotten integrated into the Senatorial Roman collection in the first century BCE and that Virgil's
Fourth Eclogue was influenced by his reading of Jewish Sibylline Oracles.
However, I would say its also possible that both Genesis and
Metamorphoses were independently conforming to some other work or archetype. Independent use of
Timaeus is not really enough here. As you acknowledge,
Metamorphoses and Genesis have virtually identical ordering of events, which is not shared with
Timaeus.
I mean here is a standard synopsis of
Metamorphoses, my own notes inserted:
Fable I: God reduces Chaos into order.
Fable II: God gives form and regularity to the universe [ending with the creation of humans].
Fable III: The Golden Age.
Fable IV: The Silver Age. The Brazen Age. The Iron Age.
Fable V: The Giants. [attempt to climb to the heavens to reach the gods]
Fable VI: Jupiter determines to destroy the world.
Fable VII: Lycaon changes into a wolf.
Fable VIII: Jupiter resolves to extirpate mankind by a universal deluge.
Fable IX: Neptune appeases the angry waves. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only persons saved from the deluge.
Fable X: Deucalion and Pyrrha re-people the earth.
Genesis, my own synopsis :
1: God reduces Chaos into order.
2: God gives form and regularity to the universe ending with the creation of humans.
3: The Garden of Eden [The Golden Age]
4: Cast out of Eden, Cain & Abel, beginning of civilization [The Silver Age. The Brazen Age. The Iron Age]
5: God determines to destroy the world.
6: God resolves to extirpate mankind by a universal deluge.
7: Noah and his family are the only persons saved from the deluge.
8: Noah and his family re-people the earth.
9: The people attempt to climb to the heavens to reach the gods.
I mean come on...
And not only that, but:
Metamorphoses 1:
At first, the sea, the earth, and the heaven, which covers all things, were the only face of nature throughout the whole universe, which men have named Chaos; a rude and undigested mass, and nothing more than an inert weight, and the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing, heaped together in the same spot. No Sun as yet gave light to the world; nor did the Moon, by increasing, recover her horns anew. The Earth did not as yet hang in the surrounding air, balanced by its own weight, nor had Amphitrite stretched out her arms along the lengthened margin of the coasts. Wherever, too, was the land, there also was the sea and the air; and thus was the earth without firmness, the sea unnavigable, the air void of light; in no one of them did its present form exist. And one was ever obstructing the other; because in the same body the cold was striving with the hot, the moist with the dry, the soft with the hard, things having weight with those devoid of weight.
To this discord God and bounteous Nature put an end; for he separated the earth from the heavens, and the waters from the earth, and distinguished the clear heavens from the gross atmosphere. And after he had unravelled these elements, and released them from that confused heap, he combined them, thus disjoined, in harmonious unison, each in its proper place. The element of the vaulted heaven, fiery and without weight, shone forth, and selected a place for itself in the highest region; next after it, both in lightness and in place, was the air; the Earth was more weighty than these, and drew with it the more ponderous atoms, and was pressed together by its own gravity. The encircling waters sank to the lowermost place, and surrounded the solid globe.
Genesis 1:
1 When God began to create the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.