101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

Conclusion 299
lived within. While scholars argue and debate whether the patriarchs existed or Israel
dwelled in Egypt or an Exodus occurred or King David captured Jerusalem, the
mythological stratifications in the Bible give us history. Despite the lack of contemporaneous
archaeological evidence for early Israel, the mythological artifacts clearly show
us that Israelite religion had a long history that went back to at least the patriarchal
period, Moses did confront a pharaoh, Israel did come out of Egypt, and a united
monarchy did exist and did split in two.
Moreover, while biblical history does not meet our current standard for historical
writing, the record shows that, despite Herodotus’s reputation as the father of history,
early Hebrew writers, such as J, E, P, and D, invented the genre and were the first true
historians. They integrated massive amounts of documentation and tradition, wrote
grand epic accounts of Israel’s origins that spanned many generations and produced
beautiful literature in the process. Ironically, it is the very act of incorporating all the
mythical material into their histories that enables us to validate so much of what is
missing from the historical record.