Questions of Reliability and/or Authorship

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I did not interpet anything.

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I took the scriptures as they are written.

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You cannot possibly know how the scriptures were written. You do not know the context. How many times do people complain about things being taken out of context? There always is interpretation involved - even when someone is telling you something to your face and you know the immediate context. So now we are talking about something that was written in a different time and place and language and you do not even know the context and you maintain there is no interpretation. Please. That is just nonsense.

I notice that you are good at making distinctions without a difference. The meaning is the same, imo. Why don't you address my point that interpretation is always part of any reading of scriptures whether one wants to admit it or not?

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"I cannot control what you choose to say or do to me, but I can control how I respond."

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So you are not atheist.
You are not Christian.
That only leaves one of the branches of descendants of Abraham.

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Quite off topic but what kind of nonsense is this? All religions are encompassed in atheist, Christian, and the descendants of Abraham? And what would you call a descendant of Abraham who happens to be an Atheist? Or a Christain? Or is such a scenario impossible in your world of neat little boxes? Where do Buddhists fall, I wonder? Rastufarians? Hindus?

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The author of the Eden narrative did not see them as figurative. Ill take Moses over the Gospel of Thomas, if for no other reason he was close to the narrative itself. That is if I have to choose between the two, or for that matter the inumerable others that percieved it as literal

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What empirical evidence do you have that Moses is the author of the Eden narrative?

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Simply put however, all the information and indications would indicate he was the author, there is no "good" reasons to believe he was not.

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Well, that is your opinion, your protagonist disagrees that you have presented empirical evidence for the authorship of Moses. And further, 'no "good" reasons to believe he was not' is not empirical evidence, it is a logical fallacy to present the lack of proof of a negative as proof of the positive. So the ball is still in your court. Sorry, but the rules of logic apply even in nonscientific discussions.Oh and as for relevance to the discussion - you made the claim. I did not make it up. If you can't back up the claim, the honorable thing to do is to withdraw it, not fall back on, "well it isn't germane to the discussion anyway." If it weren't germane, why did you make the claim? Obviously it is important, because if it can't be established that Moses was the author of the Eden account, then it can't be established that Moses was the author of Genesis - as you are resting your debate on the premise that one author wrote the whole shebang.Edited by deerbreh, : No reason given.Edited by deerbreh, : No reason given.

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Think about it, if it is "my opinion" that Moses was the author, then it is "your opinion" he was not, seeing you presented no evidence to the contrary, which implies you have no good reason for believing he was not. It stands that from this point alone, he is quite possibly the author and no reason to believe he was not.

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No, that is quite flawed logic. It's a false choice, for one thing. I also don't have a good reason for believing Abraham was not the author but I can't prove it. And why not Abraham rather than Moses? Can you prove it wasn't Abraham? Two of us can't prove it wasn't so it must be so, by your logic, no?But now you say it doesn't matter anyway (though getting nailed on faulty logic of course always matters whatever the context). So read on.

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...nearly every thinking person.

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Well it is not clear what you mean "every thinking person" is supposed to be believing, but if you mean belief in a literal Eden your universe of "thinking persons" must indeed be quite small, as I would venture to say that not nearly a majority of Christians and Jews believe that, let alone the rest of the world.

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the narrative has never been discovered apart from the book itself.

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Actually it has. In fact, there is fairly good evidence that the author of Genesis "borrowed" the account from Sumerian sources that predate Genesis. This is pretty much accepted by most scholars, who presumably do think on occasion.Northstate Science: Review of From Eden to Exile, Chapter 1: The Garden of Eden

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Cline next discusses mention of Eden in Sumerian texts that pre-date Genesis and which may themselves have been borrowed from an earlier culture, the Ubaidians (approximately 7500 - 5500 BP). He also notes the existence of additional creation stories from the region that have “striking similarities” to the story found in Genesis. All of these pre-date the biblical account:
Scholars generally agree that the Hebrew Bible as we have it today was compiled from various sources, which were written down as early as the tenth or ninth century B.C. and as late as the sixth or fifth century B.C. Even the earliest parts of the Bible, such as the source called J by biblical scholars, do not date earlier than the tenth or ninth century B.C., hundreds of years after Enuma Elish was written.

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In fact, there are multiple non-Hebrew Eden accounts and there are Hebrew accounts not part of Genesis as well.Eden narratives in Qumran | Cegula

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Eden narratives in Enoch
(1) The Book of Enoch
(2) Eden narrative in Enoch
(3) Differences from Genesis

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Eden narratives in Jubilee
(1) The Book of Jubilee
(2) Eden narrative in Jubilee
(3) Differences from Genesis

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Ball in your court again, I believe.

If you have "been over all of this already" how could you make the nonsensical statement that the Eden narrative hasn't been found apart from the Book of Genesis? - because of course it has - numerous times. You are simply in denial if you insist otherwise.As for the logic, I see no need to get to that - there is really nothing to discuss. You don't understand logic so there is no point. Go do some reading on logical fallacies and get up to speed and then maybe we can talk. In a separate thread of course. Here is a good place to start.
A List Of Fallacious Arguments