Who Wrote the Bible?

I got into a discussion w/some co-workers yesterday that touched on "who wrote the Bible".

I've learned/come to the conclusion that the bible was laid down in multiple layers by various anonymous authors through time. That it was edited by "redactors". That, for example, written prophecy started w/Amos around 800 BCE (BCE: Before Common Era, a less Christian-centric way of dating, in this multicultural world. Then, we have CE: Common Era (what some old-fashioned :-P folks refer to as "AD")).

One of my co-workers (at least one of 'em), a more-or-less traditional conservative-ish Christian, is of the opinion that, for example, Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Except for the part where Moses dies; Joshua wrote that. (That's the party line, by the way.)

Another of my co-workers, an agnostic/atheist, is of the opinion that Christians labor under the assumption that there was one author who wrote it in one pass and it's been unchanging ever since, which he considers unrealistic. When he heard me say "Genesis got re-worked" (which it did, imo, post-Exile), he almost blew a fuse trying to transition from the unrealistic concept of "bible-in-one-pass-unchanging-forevermore" to the unrealistic concept of "bible-edited-over-time-but-always-true-word-of-God".

And then, I found this on a umc.org forum, from a person whose screen name is "Ezekiel 33:6":

I recently reviewed some "Bible Study" material a friend of mine had been furnished by the Conference to study for the ministry. What I saw appalled me. The writer had, not two, but three Isaiahs, had Moses with a hand full of followers wading in ankle deep water across the northern end of the Red Sea, and described the besetting sin of Sodom as "inhospitality." Of course, Moses wrote none of the Old Testament, and neither Daniel nor Revelations are about end time prophecy. Was Jesus born of a virgin, and did he raise bodily from the dead? I saw no positive affirmation of that fundamental truth upon which the fate of the entire universe rrests. Yes, the UMC is a dead body which has been embalmed with a "Form of Godliness."

Now, I read in my Oxford Annotated Bible, for example, that there are at least two authors of the book of Isaiah: the real Isaiah, and then one or two others. That modern scholars actually refer to "First Isaiah" (1-44, or thereabouts), "Second Isaiah" (45-57, or thereabouts) and "Third Isaiah" (58-66, or thereabouts). Don't quote me on those chapter divisions, this is off the top of my head. And I believe it. These are smart, conscientious people who have devoted their lives to studying the Bible. Why shouldn't I rely on their efforts?

I've also read (and believe) the other stuff "Ezekiel 33:6" is complaining about: Moses didn't write the Pentateuch, the problem w/Sodom was not homosexuality (nor was it necessarily "inhospitality", but that's a heck of a lot closer to the truth than homosexuality), Daniel and Revelation are messages to a persecuted church/people instead of primarily descriptions of end times.

So, here's my question (and my homework assignment): how did we come to this? We have this split between scholars and academicians who study the bible seriously and reach these conclusions (which I'm inclined to believe), and we have folks who have never taken a critical look at the bible (with the aim of giving it a good, hard shake to see what further knowledge falls out -- not with a destructive aim [I do believe God gave the Bible some wonderful complexity as part of its message]). Instead, these "traditionalists" have simply accepted what they were taught as children in Sunday School and never really examined it.

And, how do we mend this? I'd like to bring people hostile to a scholarly examination of the bible over to the "dark side" [I'm joking, you people who want to quote me out of context!] without bringing their worldview down in shambles. So, we need this gentle introduction to the concept that maybe Moses didn't write the bible. And maybe the serpent in the Garden of Eden isn't actually Satan. And maybe Satan is a post-exilic invention, an inclusion of the Persian (Babylonian) concept of a dualistic universe (as opposed to the original Hebrew concept of a one-god universe).