The further back you go in the Biblical texts the more difficult it is to find historical material in it. The patriarchs go back to Genesis. Genesis is for the most part a compilation of myths, creation stories, things like that, and to find an historical core is very difficult. David Ilan, Hebrew Union College Jerusalem
Who is this people the Bible calls The Children of Israel? Where did they come from? The Bible Unearthed: The Book, 2005
These inscriptions clearly distinguish between two kingdoms: Israel & Judea. ibid.
Megiddo is the jewel of Biblical archaeology. The Bible Unearthed: The Patriarchs
Megiddo serves as a reference for the dating of sites throughout the whole near east. ibid.
There was no migration in the direction of Canaan at the time the Bible situates Abraham’s voyage. ibid.
Genesis contained a number of stories of various origins that were woven together. ibid.
An actual reference then, albeit the only one we have – we know the date the Stele was erected – 1207 B.C. At that time Israel was already established in Canaan, so the Exodus could not have occurred before this date. The Bible Unearthed: The Exodus
The absence of any evidence of their journey through the wilderness in either this oasis or anywhere else in the Sinai Peninsula is one of the enigmas of the Exodus story. ibid.
King David really did exist. There is no doubt about it. He reigned in the tenth century B.C. But was his kingdom the vast empire described in the Bible? The Bible Unearthed: The Kings
David did not build a prestigious capital. ibid.
In 2006 Horizon looked at what can happen when Science and the Bible conflict. Horizon: The End of God? A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion, BBC 2010
Five years ago Michael Drosnin sealed thee extraordinary predictions in an envelope and gave them to a top Manhattan lawyer for safe keeping. In 2003 he opened it. He says the predictions need not come true. They are a warning to the world to change its ways. The basis for it all is a code which he says has been found in the Bible. What makes it extraordinary is that it appears to be backed by scientific evidence. Michael Drosnin is not the first person to claim to have found hidden messages encoded in the Bible. Horizon: The Bible Code, BBC 2003
After two years Rips was released and allowed to emigrate. He arrived in Israel with a reputation as a man of unshakable integrity and a brilliant theoretical mathematician. It was now in Israel that Rips was introduced to the world of the Bible Codes. ibid.
One of the best mathematical minds in the world seemed to have found strong scientific evidence that there really are codes in the Bible that can see into the future. ibid.
Brendan McKay is an expert in Advanced Probability Theory. He has been investigating mathematical mysteries for almost thirty years. He decided to take up Drosnin’s challenge. He brought a copy of the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old novel Moby Dick. And using a search program similar to Rips began to comb it for hidden messages. The results were at first glance remarkable. McKay has made it very clear: these are not statistically significant messages. All they show, he says, is that you can find things that can seem extraordinary ... If you look for long enough in a big enough text. ibid.
Rips’ original experiment gave us odds of 62,500 to 1. When we did our experiment we had two lists – we had the sceptics’ list and we had the Rips’ list. The odds for the sceptics list turned out to be 2 to 1 against ... The Rips’ list we get odds of 2 to 3 ... There is absolutely no evidence at all – absolutely none – that there are hidden codes here. Dr Lynda White, Imperial College
This Stele is what the Egyptians would have called a Triumph Stele, a Victory Stele ... The text reads ... ‘Israel has been shorn. Its seed no longer exists’. Donald Redford, Pennsylvania State University
Are their stories real or merely myth? Archaeologists dig through the Bible to determine what is fact, what is fiction and whether Moses really wrote the Hebrew Bible. Is there evidence to support the exodus of the chosen people from Egypt or was the exodus really a smaller group of Canaanites who chose to be free? Nova: The Bible’s Buried Secrets 1/2, National Geographic 2008
It became known as the Merneptah Stele. Today it is in the Cairo Museum: ‘Israel has been shorn; its seed no longer exists’. ibid.
History proved the Pharaoh’s confident boast to be wrong. Rather than marking their annihilation, Merneptah’s Stele announces the entrance on to the world stage of a people named Israel. ibid.
The well-established Egyptian chronology gives the date as 1208 B.C. Merneptah’s Stele is powerful evidence that a people called the Israelites were living in Canaan in what today includes Israel and Palestine over three thousand years ago. ibid.
Scholars search for intersections between science and scripture. The earliest is the Victory Stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah from 1208 B.C. Both the Stele and the Bible place a people called the Israelites in the hill country of Canaan which includes modern-day Israel and Palestine. ibid.
Many similar discrepancies throughout its pages suggest that the Bible had more than one writer. In fact within the first five books of the Bible scholars have identified the hand of at least four different groups of scribes writing over several hundred years. This theory is called the Documentary Hypothesis. But when did the process of writing the Bible begin? ibid.
In the Bible no single event is mentioned more times than the Exodus ... It could not have happened before Ramesses became king around 1275 B.C. and it could not have happened after 1208 B.C. when the Stele of Pharaoh Merneptah – Ramesses II’s son – specifically locates the Israelites in Canaan ... In a hundred years of searching, archaeologists have not yet found evidence of migration that can be linked to the Exodus. ibid.
When archaeologists date the destruction of these buildings [Ai] they discover it occurred about 2,200 B.C. They date the destruction of Jericho to 1,500 B.C. And Hazor’s to about 1,250 B.C. Clearly these city-states were not destroyed at the same time. In fact of the 31 sites the Bible says that Joshua conquered, few showed any signs of war. ibid.
By dating the pottery Finkelstein discovered that before 1,200 B.C. there were approximately twenty-five settlements. He estimated the total population of those settlements to be between three and five thousand inhabitants. But just two hundred years later there’s a very sharp increase in settlements and people. ibid.
Archaeology reveals that the Israelites were themselves originally Canaanites. So why does the Bible consistently cast the Israelites as outsiders in Canaan? ... The answer may lie in their desire to forge a distinctly new identity ... If the Israelites wanted to distinguish themselves from their Canaanite past, what better way than to create a story about destroying them. ibid.
But Yahweh only appears in the Hebrew Bible. His name is nowhere to be found in Canaanite texts or stories. So where do the Israelites find their God? ibid.
At about 1,000 B.C. one larger-than-life figure emerges to unite the twelve tribes of Israel against a powerful new enemy: ‘David put his hand into the bag; he took out a stone and slung it. It struck the Philistine in the forehead; the stone sank into his forehead and he fell down on the ground.’ [I Samuel 17:49]. Nova: The Bible’s Buried Secrets 2/2
Of all the names in the Hebrew Bible none appears more than David. Scriptures say David creates a kingdom that stretches from Egypt to Mesopotamia. He makes Jerusalem his royal capital, and in a new covenant, God – known as Yahweh – promises that he and his descendants will rule for ever. ibid.
But then in 1993 an amazing discovery shed new light on what the Bible calls ancient Israel’s greatest king. Gila Cook was finishing up some survey work with an assistant at Tel Dan, a Biblical site in the far north of Israel today ... But something caught her eye: a stone with what appeared to be random scratches but was actually an ancient inscription ... Cook had found a fragment of a Victory Stele ... It celebrates the conquest of Israel. It boasts: ‘I slew mighty kings who harnessed thousands of chariots and thousands of horsemen. I killed the king of the House of David’. ibid.
The two different writers became known as E for Elohim & J for Jahweh. ibid.
So has Eilat Mazar discovered the Palace of David? She adds up the evidence: the building is huge; it is located in a prominent place in the oldest part of Jerusalem; and the pottery according to Albright’s chronology dates to the 10th century B.C. – the time of David. Mazar believes she has indeed found the palace of David. But the strength of her case rests on the outcome of dating shards of pottery. ibid.
Three monumental gates all based on the same plan would seem to be powerful evidence not only of prosperity but also of a central authority ... This stunning convergence between the Bible and Egyptian history gives a firm date for the death of Solomon ... 930 B.C. This is further evidence that David and Solomon lived in the 10th century ... Although a minority of archaeologists continue to disagree, this convergence of the Bible, Egyptian chronology and Solomon’s Gates is powerful evidence that a great kingdom existed at the time of David and Solomon spanning all of Israel, north and south, with its capital in Jerusalem. ibid.
Inspires another group of scribes in the 7th century B.C. – who scholars call the D writers. ibid.
Despite Josiah’s reforms the ancient Israelites continue to worship other gods. Their acceptance of one god and the triumph of monotheism begins with a series of events vividly attested through archaeology, ancient texts and the Bible. It starts with the destruction of Yahweh’s earthly dwelling, The Jerusalem Temple. In 586 B.C. after defeating the Assyrians a new Mesopotamian empire invades Israel. The Babylonians ransack the Temple and systematically burn the sacred city. Before his eyes the Babylonian victors slay the sons of Zedechiah, the last Davidic king, then blind him. The Covenant, the promise made by Yahweh to his chosen people and to David that his dynasty would rule eternally in Jerusalem, is broken. After four-hundred years Israel is wiped out. The Babylonians round up the Israelite priests, prophets and scribes and drag them in chains to Babylon. Babylonian records confirm the presence of Israelites including the king in exile. ibid.