If so, then perhaps this: https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient-ebook/dp/B000FBJG86/ref=mp_s_a_1_14?crid=3EV6TY3VMDG7P&keywords=bible+origins&qid=1640381501&sprefix=bible+origi%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-14
Defining the baseline to be used in the thesis might be very intriguing.
What is meant, exactly, by the word, “demon”? Or, is it more accurate to say, “diamon”? Personally, think this difference is at the root of the comparison and to deploy the Bible as a standard without digging into its dirt (pun) is to avoid the heavy lifting that should be done.
It's called "The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts"
https://www.amazon.com.au/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient-ebook/dp/B000FBJG86
It's an extremely well received book in academia.
The Canaanites weren't given a chance to change their ways. Yahweh choose the Israelites as his people, and gave his laws to them. How were the Canaanites supposed to change their ways when they hadn't been told to? It's like beating a child for breaking a rule you never told them.
Also, archaeological evidence shows that the Israelites were Canaanites; there was a gradual transition from Canaanite culture to polytheistic Israelite culture, and eventually monotheistic Judahite culture.
Finally, Moloch wasn't a Canaanite god. He was Phoenician, and the authors of the Pentateuch didn't know the difference; this is actually excellent evidence that the books were written much later than has been traditionally thought, because the writers couldn't distinguish between the two groups anymore. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Canaanites performed human sacrifice, and yet you're actually trying to justify the wholesale slaughter of an entire people, including children. Why did Yahweh have the children killed if it was about right practices? Surely they could have been taught proper religious practices. The reason is because that's not what it was about; it was ethnic cleansing, the killing was supposed to remove all the non-Israelite blood from the area to show explicitly that the Israelites were distinct from the Canaanites, that their religious practices were unique, and that they were untainted.
You're actually trying to justify a genocide. Stop for a moment and think carefully about whether you're the kind of person who thinks that genocide is acceptable under some circumstances, and then tell me where you get your morals.
Give this a read for the evidence out there. It doesn't have the newest finds since it's 15 years old, but it does a good job explaining the evidence for both the Biblical minimalist and maximalist positions (i.e. Jews in Egypt/Exodus are false/are true). It has many excellent reviews from archaeologists.
https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient-ebook/dp/B000FBJG86
The book The Bible Unearthed is a good source for what is the likely reality behind the Old Testament.
Bart Ehrman's books are good for understanding the reality behind the New Testament. He's a nonbeliever Bible scholar and historian who studies that time and place.
This isn't about respect for beliefs or viewpoints, this is about respect for facts. You are making claims about things that we can objectively learn about. They are things that can be proven false. And have been.
You can believe that things happened as the Pentateuch says all you want, but that doesn't impact the a-historical nature of the texts.
Give this a read to see what the evidence points to: http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient-ebook/dp/B000FBJG86
It gives, more or less, the consensus view of archaeologists on ancient near east history. It isn't a new book, and there have been some new findings to alter things a bit, but it's still quite worthwhile.
Short story: Most of the Pentateuch is mythological. While that book starts with the Patriarch, the Flood and other stories between Creation and Abraham aren't attested to with any evidence. The Exodus, if it happened at all, was a far smaller event. The Conquest of Canaan simply never happened at all. The history of Israel up through David is probably heavily propagandized (it is in this area that the most new discoveries have been found since the book was written). You only see a strong correspondence to the archaeological record post-Exile when the Bible was being written in real-time instead of compiled from earlier now-lost scrolls or oral history.
You may not like it, I know that it took me quite a while to come to terms with it, but that is the history. The Bible's words are not history. This isn't that surprising since history books didn't exist back then and that style of writing/looking at things is a relatively modern invention.
It is the overwhelming consensus of archaeologists of the ANE and Egypt that the Exodus narrative in the Bible is mostly or wholly mythological. No archaeological evidence has ever been found for Israelites being enslaved in Egypt, for any human presence in the Sinai at all at this time (despite over a century of highly motivated scouring of the Sinai Peninsula), there was no migration of Israelites into Canaan and no conquest of Canaan by Israelites. The archaeological evidence shows that Israelites were originally just Canaanites themselves. They began to emerge as a distinct cultural group around the 12th Century BCE (after the alleged time of the Exodus).
There are some hypotheses about much smaller scale migrations, for example Richard Elliot Friedman's theory that only one tribe, the Levites, actually came from Egypt.
As an aside, we don't even really know where the narrative intends to say the crossing happened. The Hebrew actually says "Sea of Reeds," (<em>Yam Suph</em>) not "Red Sea" (which would be Yam Adam), so some scholars think the author intended to refer to an inland sea or lake. The LXX translates it into Greek as Erythros Thallasa "Red Sea," so we don't even really know what body of water the narrative has in view, much less the particular site or route of the crossing.
Sources to look at would be:
<em>The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts</em> by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman
<em>The Exodus</em> by Richard Elliot Friedman
<em>In Search of Ancient Israel</em> by Philip R Davies.
There is one crusty old guy named Kenneth Kitchen who still tried to argue for the historicity of the Exodus, but he's kind of on an island, but if you want a really conservative scholarly view, I'd suggest his book <em>On the Reliability of the Old Testament</em>.
It's not
​
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, a book published in 2001, discusses the archaeology of Israel and its relationship to the origins and content of the Hebrew Bible. The authors are Israel Finkelstein, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, and Neil Asher Silberman, an archaeologist, historian and contributing editor to Archaeology Magazine.
There's no archeological evidence for Hebrews ever being slaves in Egypt, we're all literally the descendants of cannanites who were already in Israel.
I'm not trying to attack faith here, if you believe in the Bible as fact, then just look there or resources around the bible.
It was a great read! A lot of archeological work was ironically done by the Church in an attempt to prove that the bible was "true".
"I understand what you are trying to do but the Jews are not pagans."
"They are one of the earliest founders of monotheism. Who are the pagan Jews you are talking about?
Certainly not orthodox Jews or even Reform Jews, for that matte, but many Israelites in the new generations have become eclectic and mix Judaism with shamanism or even Hindu teachings, the so-called New Age Jews. Rabbi Gershon Winkler is a shamanist, for instance.
As for the earliest monotheists, I think this would be the Oromo of Ethiopia, who still have a pagan monotheist faith, followed by Amenhotep IV aka Akhenaton in Egytp, a pagan monotheism too.
Some argue that even Zeus had some monotheist followers in ancient Greece in a certain period.
However, what is even more important is that some scholars have spoken out against this supposed exclusive monotheist origin for Israelites.
I personally support the thesis that they were also polytheist Canaanites (ancient Hebrew is indistinguishable from ancient Canaanite or their old alphabets are practically the same) and that no such a thing as an exodus from Egypt ever happened, no matter how cute the Disney animation is:-)
The Bible Unearthed vol 1 (Patriarchs and Exodus) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW-LV84c_O8&t=1734s
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts Reprint Edition, Kindle Edition by Israel Finkelstein (Author), Neil Asher Silberman https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient-ebook/dp/B000FBJG86/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Bible+Unearthed&qid=1631126487&s=books&sr=1-1
And let's not forget the Elephantine Papyri themselves, in which there's mention of a synagogue in that Egyptian island which worshiped two Egyptian gods along with Yaweh, which, by the way, is also the old Canaanite god El. https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3793
The Ancient Family of El(ohim) - Canaanite God, the God of the Hebrew Bible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpJojm9nAH8&t=74s
Of course biased scholars will desperately try to deny the existence of Israelite worship of the Mother Goddess Asherah, as they desperately try to deny the origins of the Noah and Job legends in the much older Sumerian culture, usually via the not-so-old but still older Babylonian sources.
Did God have a Wife? Who was the asherah goddess and was she married to Yhwh? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubP1TxRLw2I
Some of the books on this fascinating subject:
History's Vanquished Goddess ASHERAH: God's Wife: the Goddess Asherah, Wife of Yahweh. Archaeological & Historical Aspects of Syro-Palestinian ... Traditions, Macrocosmically Examined Paperback – February 21, 2014 by Darlene Kosnik (Author) 4.4 out of 5 stars 33 ratings See all formats and editions https://www.amazon.com/Historys-Vanquished-Goddess-ASHERAH-Syro-Palestinian/dp/0985609575/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Asherah&qid=1631127049&s=books&sr=1-1 Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (Monograph Series / Society of Biblical Literature) Paperback – January 1, 1988 by Saul M. Olyan https://www.amazon.com/Asherah-Monograph-Society-Biblical-Literature/dp/1555402542/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Asherah&qid=1631127114&s=books&sr=1-3
The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications) by Judith M. Hadley | Jun https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Asherah-Ancient-Israel-Judah/dp/0521662354/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=Asherah&qid=1631127114&s=books&sr=1-7
And last but never least, Tess Dawson's work (one of the modern priestess of the Modern Canaanite Religion: https://www.amazon.com/Whisper-Stone-Qadish-Canaanite-Religion/dp/1846941903/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Whisper+of+Stone&qid=1631127209&s=books&sr=1-1
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein is a must-read for anyone wanting to contrast "Biblical Archaology" with actual archaeology.
So, two things real quick. The first, is that I’ve actually answered this question in different ways before (it’s also under the FAQ part on r/askhistorians as well) but I’d be happy to still answer it, but keep in mind I will be copying and pasting much of my answers from previous posts. Second, I want to throw in a disclaimer about the content of my response. I will answer it from the historical (not the religious or cultural) perspective of the known history of the historical ancient Israel. Much of what is in the bible and/or Torah cannot be verified or backed up using historical/archeological evidence. This still opens up much for people to learn since most of what we know about Israel's history is actually quite different from what we know in the bible. So in short, I am saying: although the answer to your question is quite different from what you have in the bible, it is not intended to be an attack anyone's beliefs or faith. However, I will try and make a correlation between what the bible says and what we know historically about the Israelites. (I say this because I have been down voted before when I said things which conflict with the bible and I don't want that to happen here.)
Primary Sources on Ancient Israel
So first off, it’s important to know that we have absolutely no original manuscripts of the Torah in any complete form dating before the first millennia BCE. This makes it difficult to know the authenticity of the claims in the book of Exodus since most of the claims should have happened hundreds or thousands of years earlier.
Likewise, there aren’t many ancient accounts from other nations about ancient Israel from before the first millennia BCE with the earliest being an Egyptian Stele which dates to just before the year 0. World Renown Egyptian historian Eric Cline wrote about the very first mention by anyone of Israel and its people outside of the bible.
>Merneptah is perhaps best known to students of the ancient Near East as the Egyptian pharaoh who first uses the term “Israel,” in an inscription dating to this same year (1207 BC). This inscription is the earliest occurrence of the name Israel outside the Bible. In the Pharaonic inscription, the name—written with a special sign to indicate that it is a people rather than just a place— appears in a brief description of a campaign to the region of Canaan, where the people whom he calls “Israel” were located. >Source: Cline, Eric H. (2014-03-23). 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) Princeton University Press. (pp. 6-7)
What’s my point for all this: we have very little evidence about anything in ancient Israel’s past from before the year 1200 BCE. Even more important is that there isn’t any mention of ancient Israelites traveling outside of the Levant (the geographical area where Israel is today) in any great numbers, let alone being enslaved by them.
Likely Origins of Ancient Israel
So it's difficult to say what exactly was happening with the ancient Israelites. We have no archeological evidence for the existence of Moses or Joseph or even Abraham.
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein. This is a great popular history book written by a well-respected historian which very plainly explains that the likelihood of the ancient Israelites to have been slaves in Egypt, be freed and walked across the peninsula to Canan and conquer it is extremely unlikely.
Rather, these historians explain that Israel likely originated in this area and the exodus story evolved from tales of the Hyksos migration from Egypt years prior.
The Exodus
So if the Exodus was true, when could it have happened?
The Exodus would have had to have happened after the year 1280 BCE at its very earliest (again, no credible historians believe this is the case). How do we know this? Well, part of why is that we have to match up the descriptions in the bible with known history.
If we look the book of Exodus, chapter 12:37 it says, "The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children." Now I'm more concerned with the first sentence where it says they left Rameses for Sukkoth.
Now Rameses was the ancient capital of the 19th Dynasty of Ancient Egyptian history and founded by it's king Ramses II. The city, known in it's full name as Pi-Ramesses, was founded at some point during his reign (which was from about 1280-12:20 BCE). Now there is a small chance that this site could have been founded under his father, Rameses I, but even that would have put the founding of the city at no earlier than 1290. My point for why this is significant is because if the bible asserts that this is the city the fleeing Hebrew slaves left from, then there isn't a way that the book of Exodus could have happened any earlier than this time period. On the flip side, if we focus purely on the historical evidence that we have, it would suggest that the tribe of Israel were currently or about to become a vassal to the Egyptian thrown (as I said above). This area, known as the Levant, was almost exclusively under Egyptian control which was not necessarily a bad thing since the the Hitite kingdom (in the north near present day Turkey) were in a phase of expansion at the beginning of the 13th century BCE and it was beneficial for anyone's survival to be under Egyptian control rather than to be on your own.
Now another issue with the Exodus story is the sheer scale they mention. Again, let’s look at the Torah for their description: “At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the LORD's divisions left Egypt." Exodus 12:41 And they say that at least 600,000 men, plus women and children all left at at the same time in a great migration (Exodus 12:31). You’re talking about anywhere from 1 to 2 million people traveling across a pretty big distance for 40 years without any archeological evidence that was left behind them (not to mention that there is no Egyptian evidence that they enslaved any group or nation for this long). Biblical Archeologist William G. Dever wrote an interesting article for the peer-reviewed journal The American Schools of Oriental Research entitled Ceramics, Ethnicity, and the Question of Israel's Origins and he focused a lot on Israel's early history and how we know what we know today, and he explains in detail the evidence that we have of ancient Israel and how it doesn’t match up with the biblical story of the Exodus. If you can't locate it yourself, I'll try and see if I can locate it somewhere on the internet for free if you need this. (William G. Dever, The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 58, No. 4, Pots & People (Dec., 1995), pp. 200-213)
TL;DR Summary
Many historians believe that one reason how the Exodus story came about was because during the late bronze Age (which is this period of around the year 1200 BCE), Egypt controlled all these areas around the Levant. Israel was likely a vassal or was occupied by Egypt, and the Israelites hated them for it and these stories in the Torah are likely a combination of folk stories mixed in with rare elements of truth.
Hope this helps. If you have any follow up questions, please let me know.
*edits for grammar, clarity, and spelling