FearlessLeader2 said:
As we have gone over in some detail in an older thread, the Bible book of Genesis, supposedly authored by a 'Palestinian goatherd' (Moses) managed to get every detail of Creation right that it recorded, even those that pre-dated man, and even life. Are we then, to assume that Moses, a 'Palestinian goatherd', managed to conjure up one lucky guess after another starting with the Big Bangs and ending with the arrival of man? Luck like that IS a miracle.
I hate to get into an argument like this, but I'm afraid the views here are not at all those of academics and scholars. Genesis was certainly not written by Moses, who, if he existed, lived in around 1,200BC. In any case, he was not Palestinian but Egyptian; the explanation given in Exodus 2:10 for Moses' name is improbable, given that it is simply a slight variation on a typical Egyptian name.
In fact, the Pentateuch makes no claims to authorship of any kind and indeed describes the death of Moses near the end of Deuteronomy. In fact, most scholars agree that the whole Pentateuch, including Genesis, as we know it came into being in the sixth century BC or thereabouts (that is, approximately the time of the Babylonian exile). It was based on various stories that had circulated for many years beforehand, so what we have is not what someone simply sat down and wrote one day, but has a long tradition of oral and written transmission behind it. Since the early nineteenth century, scholars have been able to sift the text and discern some of its sources, because different passages feature different vocubulary and different ideas. For example, although people talk about "the creation story", Genesis actually has two - 1:1 to 2:6, and then 2:7 to 2:25. In the first, God creates the world bit by bit, ending with men and women. In the latter, God creates man, then the world around him, and finally woman. Moreover, each story uses a different name for God. It's clues like these that indicate different sources and traditions behind the text as we have it.
I don't understand the claim that either of these stories reflects modern scientific thinking. Modern scientists believe that birds evolved from land animals, not before them. They also think that land animals evolved from water-dwelling life, rather than being spontaneously generated by the land itself in Aristotelian fashion. They also regard whales as the descendants of land mammals, and did not exist before them or come into being with fish. The notion that all animals were once wholly herbivorous, and that carnivorous animals came into being only after human beings had appeared, does not tally well with the body of scientific opinion. And I am unaware of any scientific evidence that female humans developed out of male ribs.
). But if anyone really must know, just ask... *i have a feeling i'm making a mistake* 
