Nobody wrote the Old Testament. We have no idea how long those stories were oral traditions before they were written. Further, what folks normally regard as "The Word" now is a controlled game of "telephone". What we have out there now is a translation from Greek (that had a quarter million words) to Proto-Hebrew (with just over 10,000 words). Then translated back to Greek.

Here's an example of what could happen from Uncle Clif. There's no Hebrew word for hippopotamus, so they might call it a horse in scripture (that which is written). They would call a mule, a giraffe, a donkey a horse or horse-like. You catchin' what I'm laying down?