God either made man, male only, before the animals or He made the animals, then man, in both cases male and female together. He could not logically have done both, unless we're talking about different planets or different universes here, which I think you'll agree is going a bit too far. In addition, the separate, pagan origins of Genesis 1 and 2 can be, as I have pointed out, easily learned from a purely historical standpoint rather than from logic alone. Ditto the Epic of Gilgamesh, available in pretty much its original form in any good bookstore or library, and clearly fictional, from which the Biblical flood story was later adapted.

Steven, you are blaming the messenger here. It is an ancient error that cost many messengers their lives in earlier times. I might add that, were it not for Bible scholarship, we would not have the Bible at all. It didn't just come together by itself.

I have no problem with someone claiming that the Bible is God's word, but that is an oversimplification. What about the various books that were canonical for centuries and later removed? Were they the word of God until their removal, after which they became the word of man? Once again, you have a logical problem here. Bible scholars realize things like this. They realize, for example, that Paul could not possibly have written many of the letters creditted to him. They realize that 2 Peter is little more than a plagiarism of Jude and should probably not even be in the canon. They realize that if John the Apostle wrote the fourth gospel, then he could not possibly have written Revelation because a literary analysis of the two books precludes common authorship.

The people who have discovered these things over the centuries have, in most cases, devoted their entire adult lives to Bible research. They are, for the most part, devout Jews and Christians. To refer to their work as 'calling the Word a lie' shows a certain detachment from reality. I don't think that's a legitimate part of religion, certainly not of mine, and I don't think God is pleased by people who make such condemnations. Just my opinion, as a messenger.