Wikipedia: Genesis/Talk

I think some of teachings may be disputed by various religious groups. For instance Calvinists would probably dispute the claim that evil comes about only by abuse of free will, since to them everything is predetermined. Also, when you say that things are in stark contrast to previous texts in history, are you including Ikhenaton's religion, which was monotheist?

I would assume that I was on some alternate Earth if many of these things were not disputed by at least *some* religious groups! ;-) The material I have added was based on the peshat of the text; Orthodox Jews sometimes use this term to mean the "literal" meaning of the text, as opposed to the "derash", the meaning read into the text by a later author. However, I was using the religiously-neutral use of the term "peshat" - the meaning of the text that the original author intended to convey to the original audience. Scholars affirm that it is literally impossible to determine the peshat of any ancient near-eastern text unless one becomes an expert on comparative linguistics, history, myhtology and archaeology. I agree, and I defer to their findings. This, obviously, makes me a heretic according to Orthodox Judaism and many Chrisitian branches. C'est la vie. However, this info is well accepted by the scholars in the Anchor Bible project, which includes scholars from Judaism, Protestant and Catholic Christianity.

"In stark contrast to the pagan religious texts of middle and near-eastern pre-history..."

"The texts of pre-history" - I think we want to find a better way to say this. :-)