As the Live Leak Chat often turns to a Bible Study Circle, I hope that this upload of mine offers (to some) new perspective on origin of the bible.

The Old Testament is adapted from and finds its roots in The Torah , the sacred text of the Jewish religion. It is thought by many that The Torah accurately represents the true history of the Jewish people, their trials and the words of their god, and the teachings of the prophet Moses. It is believed that the laws of the god Yahweh - known as the “Ten Commandments” - were relayed to Moses, passed on to the “Children of Israel” and were written in the book of Exodus for all time.

The origins of The Bible are controversial at best. For literally hundreds of years there has been some debate, both academic and religious, as to where The Bible came from. Many in the Jewish faith claim that The Torah represents the literal history of the Hebrew people. Many in the academic field would contend that the Torah is roughly five hundred years off due to the timeline of some stories that are believed to be written by Moses and the creation of the written language of the Hebrews

Gilgamesh is believed to have been a Sumerian king from the city of Uruk who ruled around 2500 B.C. Little is known about this actual historical figure or his mythological counterpart. What we know about the mythological Gilgamesh comes primarily from the oldest work of literature known to man: The Epic of Gilgamesh. The written story of Gilgamesh possibly finds its roots as far back as 3,700 years ago but the oral story seems to have appeared circa 2100 B.C. This is in stark contrast to the age of the main story in the Book of Exodus where Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt. The commonly accepted dates for this story, if it ever happened, would be circa 1300-1200 B.C. If we were to accept these dates as being true this would make the tales told about Gilgamesh some eight hundred to nine hundred years older than any possible oral telling of the Old Testament stories in the Book of Exodus.

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/