[cratermoon]

Exactly. Some "scholars" say that Genesis, along with the other four books of the pentateuch, was literally written by Moses and recounts actual facts as they happened. Wikipedia's NPOV utterly fails on topics like faith and belief.

[bawolff]

Note, it would be against wikipedia policies to say "Some scholars say X". You're not supposed to use weasel words, and npov does not mean you have to give equal weight to all.

Case in point, wikipedia doesn't say that some scholars believe genisis was written by moses. Instead they say:

"Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy, but modern scholars, especially from the 19th century onward, see them as being written hundreds of years after Moses is supposed to have lived, in the 6th and 5th centuries BC.[7][8] Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence, most scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical. Biblical literalists do interpret it as actual history, giving rise to beliefs such as Young Earth creationism."

Which seems entirely fair to me.

[cratermoon]

"Tradition credits" seems like as much weasel words as "some people say". Whose tradition? Since when? Where does the tradition come from?

> Note, it would be against wikipedia policies to say "Some scholars say X"

But.. that's exactly what the linked wikipedia article says! I'm not vested enough to care to change it, but if you're right, that is a violation of policy.

[bawolff]

I think its pretty clear in context that they mean the traditions of the people who view the book as holy, particularly Jews and Christians. They go in more detail if you click the link.

The big difference is that "Some scholars believe X" and "Some scholars believe not X" are basically true for most X. The traditional view of Jews & Christians being that moses wrote genisis is a fact about the world. It can be either true or false. They either believed that traditionally or they did not. Both it and its negation cannot both be true.

[carlmr]

>The traditional view of Jews & Christians being that moses wrote genisis is a fact about the world. It can be either true or false. They either believed that traditionally or they did not. Both it and its negation cannot both be true.

How so? If there was more than one early Jew/Christian they could have held different beliefs about that. If you want to be exact, you can't state any facts about the beliefs of somebody, living or dead. And if there's more than one person you can't say they all held the same belief.