To those who believe Moses wrote Genesis...?

The first 5 Books of the Old testament were memorized word for word and kept until Moses set it to writing

Mosaic authorship would mean the five books were written around 1280 to 1250 BC, the most commonly accepted range of dates for the exodus from Egypt, give or take 30 years.

It has long been recognized that there were a few problems with the traditional view of Moses as author. The text reports the death of Moses--how could Moses have written of his own death? It also describes Moses as "the most humble man who ever lived"--how could Moses write that about himself? But these are minor issues. Some say Moses' successor Joshua wrote the few lines that describe the death of Moses; others say that Moses himself was commanded to write that text before it happened. None of this represents a serious challenge to Mosaic authorship.

As time went on, however, scholars became increasingly skeptical of the idea of Moses as single author. Among their objections:

Several stories are repeated, with different characters or different emphasis (called "doublets"). For instance, there are two creation stories (Gen 1 and Gen 2). There are three stories of a patriarch traveling among pagans and pretending his wife is his sister. There are two stories of Moses striking a rock to produce water. There are two versions of the Ten Commandments (one in Exodus, one that Moses recaps in Deuteronomy) with slightly different wording. There are, in fact, a lot of these doublets.

There are internal inconsistencies. The number of days of the Flood story don't add up right. At one point, Noah takes two of each animal; at another point, he takes two of some, seven of others. Joseph is sold into slavery to Ishmaelites in one verse, to Midianites a few verses later. The Mountain of Revelation is sometimes called Sinai and sometimes Horeb. Moses' father-in-law is sometimes called Yitro and sometimes Ruel, and so on.

The story was already known. Moses would have just been the one to collect the accounts and establish a cannon (i.e. standard) under God's direction so that we would have the correct version of events.

I don't think there is evidence Moses wrote it, there is evidence someone from his time period collected the stories and wrote them down.

The old testament was passed down orally for over 2500 years. Moses is given credit for writing it..

was Moses even a historical figure?...i have my doubts.

Traditionally, Moses is the author, but most jewish scholars attribute the torah to several authors http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1985/who-...