Everything before the Babylonian Exile was made up, because the Babylonians sacked, well everything. They destroyed the First Temple, and took away the nobility and priests.
It was only after the Exile ended that the Hebrews became monotheistic… Sort of. There has been some noises before the Exile, but afterwards it was official.
It was also after the Exile that the stories of Noah and Moses were first added to the Torah.
As a note, the Epic of Gilgamesh has a flood story, and as an ancient Babylon story, would have been available for the hostages (the Hebrew priests and nobility) to read.
Not entirely made up. Some of the late first temple period can be verified. Such as the split between the northern and southern kingdoms, or the Assyrian invasion under Hezekiah. The further you go back, though, the worse the evidence gets. David and Solomon are questionable as historical figures, and anything before that, just forget it. The Egyptian exile never happened.
The TLDR; no mentions of Moses in Egyptian or Persian texts until about the 4th century BCE. He may have been a Hebrew specific quasi mythic figure based on a possible real person. But there’s no evidence at all.
Which makes sense, because that’s the timeframe that the Achaemenid Empire conquered Babylon and started letting the exiles return to Judah. Exiles who compiled a new Torah from scraps they saved and from making shit up.
Everything before the Babylonian Exile was made up, because the Babylonians sacked, well everything. They destroyed the First Temple, and took away the nobility and priests.
It was only after the Exile ended that the Hebrews became monotheistic… Sort of. There has been some noises before the Exile, but afterwards it was official.
It was also after the Exile that the stories of Noah and Moses were first added to the Torah.
As a note, the Epic of Gilgamesh has a flood story, and as an ancient Babylon story, would have been available for the hostages (the Hebrew priests and nobility) to read.
Not entirely made up. Some of the late first temple period can be verified. Such as the split between the northern and southern kingdoms, or the Assyrian invasion under Hezekiah. The further you go back, though, the worse the evidence gets. David and Solomon are questionable as historical figures, and anything before that, just forget it. The Egyptian exile never happened.
Makes sense with the flood story… I wonder where the Moses story came from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses#Historicity
The TLDR; no mentions of Moses in Egyptian or Persian texts until about the 4th century BCE. He may have been a Hebrew specific quasi mythic figure based on a possible real person. But there’s no evidence at all.
Which makes sense, because that’s the timeframe that the Achaemenid Empire conquered Babylon and started letting the exiles return to Judah. Exiles who compiled a new Torah from scraps they saved and from making shit up.