The validity of faith.

Perhaps the questioner's intention is, how to rationalize the accepted age in Judaism of 5778 years for the creation of the world, with the scientific determination of an estimated age of about 13.8 billion years.
It is true that the opinion is known that the six days of Genesis were not 6 units of 24 hours, since this refers to the cycle of the Earth's rotation around the Sun, while according to the Torah the lights were hung only on Wednesday.
The question is, what is the meaning of the accepted number in Judaism. (5778)?

So the questioner answered himself at the beginning of the question: to interpret the Holy Scriptures in an increasingly creative way.

Okay. The question is what creative interpretation can explain the age of the Jewish world.

It can be understood that this is a metaphorical description of the stages of development of the world. Each stage is a biblical day. And in particular, all of this comes to teach us norms and not facts (moral hierarchy between inanimate objects, plants, animals and humans). The number of six thousand years describes the known human history since the “first man” (which is not what is defined as the first Homo sapiens, whose appearance is also the subject of huge disagreements among researchers).

If so, who is this "Adam the First" in your opinion? And why is it important to count time from his era?

What does it mean who is he? What was his name? Adam.
The timing is really not important. The beginning of the axes for the table had to be determined and for this they used the beginning of the biblical description.

My intention is to ask, if Adam the first is not the first Homo sapiens, then who is he? What makes him unique? After all, about six thousand years ago there were many, many people who were completely similar to him, and on the contrary, the Torah says that he was the only person in the world.
And according to the claims of the scientific establishment today, six thousand years ago there were many, many Homo sapiens walking around the world, and no significant turning point occurred or a significant person lived to whom the beginning of the count can be attributed. So again, what is the meaning of the number 5778 of the Jewish minyan?

The first person to move from utilitarian survival thinking to abstract moral thinking.

The Mishnah speaks of the Adoni Hasade (N and M alternate and refer to the Adoni Hasade or the people of the field). The commentators interpret them as human savages - hunter-gatherers who still roamed the environment without culture. Then there are the farmers. The farmers are already more civilized but to a large extent remain demons as the Maimonides describes them in Mora Nebuchim 3:17. That is, having human appearance and civilized behavior but without abstract moral rules. When the Gemara claims that the Gentiles are suspected of rape/murder/theft and further it actually describes the Gentiles as a type of demons. On the one hand civilized on the other hand lacking any moral inhibitions. The third group are those who have thinking and morality - Adam the First and his heirs Israel.

The first monotheist perhaps.

Now some advantages that are achieved when adopting the evolutionary concept:
Cain says: “All my descendants will kill me”. Rashi attributes this to the animals of the field, but in light of the evolutionary concept, everything becomes simple. All my descendants will kill me are the Homo sapiens who, although they have not yet accepted abstract thinking, still have the utilitarian social prohibition on murder. These will hear about the murder of Abel by Cain and kill Cain without realizing that he has repented.
Cain builds a city for his son Enoch. Although Tractate Eruvin states that a city can count a single number of houses, it is clear that a city is not built for 2 and a half people. Cain builds a city in which Homo sapiens will live.
The Midrash says that during those 130 years that Adam was separated from his wife Eve, he gave birth to demons, that is, Homo sapiens lacking abstract intelligence from other Homo sapiens females.
Esau wants to kill Jacob. Esau knows the story of Cain and Abel and knows that there is an abstract prohibition, but Esau returns to being a demon, that is, a utilitarian homo sapiens who acts like a mafia boss.

I have no idea what makes him unique. The difference between me and various neo-Darwinists (what you call the “scientific establishment” for some reason) is that even though they have no idea, they make strong claims. I don't know if a creature special in its IQ or other characteristics (such as those described by Y”D or Gideon) was not created at that time and was called Adam the First. As far as I understand, there is no way to know this from research, and certainly not to know that it didn't happen (to know that it might be possible, if they found evidence that shows that such a creature was created then. But I haven't seen it, that's not evidence).

There was not necessarily anything unique about the first man. The first man is the first in the genealogies of Israel and the ancient East (all of them count ten generations before the flood, and one of the names is Adam). He is the first to be remembered, and all those before him were as if they had not existed, and were forgotten by heart. With the first man, history practically began. Why is he remembered? Apparently there was something special in his day. We can speculate what it is: the invention of writing. This invention gave a jump start to human development, and also left behind a record that without writing would have been forgotten. The lists of relations were also written: “This is the book of the history of Adam.” A book = a record, not the story of Deuteronomy and as is well-known (and the book of Deuteronomy was written for it). Note that the transition from prehistory to history begins 6,000 years ago, also in research. According to this, the first man is not the first in relation to the past described in “narrative time.” (a.s.) of the Torah, but in relation to the present of the recipients of the Torah. He is the first from their perspective (of course, traditions about this person preceded the giving of the Torah). It is not impossible that he did not exist at all. The Rambam and the Ibn Ezra hint at this by referring to him 20 times in the story as the knowledge “and the man knew…” which proves that it is the name of the genus as a whole and not a single figure. See Gedaliah Nadel's book in several places. If you wish, send me an email and I will send you a comprehensive article on all this giladstn@gmail.com