This was just published at Aeon Ideas. I paste a copy below. Not really. And not really. The truth is that there isn’t much, if any, historical accuracy in the early accounts in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. There are many reasons to doubt these early stories. Internal to the Bible itself, the stories are peppered with supernatural interventions that strain belief and are full of contradictions. Externally, and more importantly, almost none of these stories can find more than a potential shred of supporting evidence, and evidence external to the Hebrew Bible more often than not contradicts the biblical account. There is no real evidence for an Exodus by the Israelites from Egypt, for example, or for even the very existence of the extraordinarily wise, wealthy, and well-traveled King Solomon. Archaeological evidence directly contradicts the biblical account of the conquest of Jericho specifically and, more generally, of the account of the Israelite conquest of Canaan. Instead of seeing the Hebrew Bible as containing an accurate historical record, we are better off seeing it as a collection of ancient Israelite myths. These myths, just like those of the Greeks, might have small kernels of historical truths buried somewhere within them, but […]
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