The video from the Biblical Archeology Review website presents a popular approach to archeological knowledge of the history of the Bible. Well worth one's time, the archeologist talks with experts in the field on site including viewing of the cave where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the scrolls themselves in Jerusalem, and the oldest yet discovered fragments of Bible verse dating to the 6th century B.C.
There are several theories of how the Bible was written today. Here is what I think about it. Because Abraham was perhaps a literate Sumerian before going on his journey to the future land Israel it is probable that he either taught his family to intellectual heirs how to write in cuneiform or there was at least an oral tradition that continued through Jewish history unto the time of Moses.
Moses as the adopted son of Pharaoh would also have been literate - in hieroglyphics. The multi-language social circumstance of Moses may have stimulated his development of the alphabet (aleph beth)-the first symbolic representation of sounds instead of words simplifying his Egyptian language, the Jewish language and/or cuneiform indeterminacy of translation issues by making writing represent sounds instead of words meaningful in just one language. Writing sounds down one could write anything said in any language and reproduce the sound-word later.
At any rate, Moses and the exodus of the Jews from captivity in Egypt occurred sometime between 1500 and 1250 B.C. Obviously at a minimum strictly maintained oral history was perpetuated until the establishment of the Kingship of David around the year 1050. In David's or his son Rehoboam's court it is probable that the existing Biblical documents such as may have been written during the Abraham to David era-the first 1000 years of Jewish history, were compiled, organized and conserved as the first five books of the Bible- the Pentateuch.
One would think that the number of parchments, papyrus, scrolls, oral histories cuneiform writing etc recording the main line of Jewish tribal history may have exceed what actually ended up in the Pentateuch. That raises another interesting question; how did the compilers of the Old Testament prophets canonize the writings of the prophets, or determine what prophecy should be included in the Bible?
If one considers the life of a prophet within the culture of his day - a guy coming from a humble background letting the elites and the decadent know that God isn't pleased with them, one might be aware that many would disregard the prophet or write him off as a crank. There were after all many prophets in that time both inspired, semi-pro and professional seeking jobs with the government in as high a capacity as possible.
When and who determined that Jeremiah for instance, ought to be considered a true prophet, and who wrote or redacted his book? Jeremiah has a scribe named Baruch that writes down what he says, yet the book of Jeremiah itself was perhaps written by a 3rd person writing like an historian including the material as accurately as possible of what Jeremiah did and what Baruch wrote about and from Jeremiah.
To return to the topic. Not all of the Jews were taken into captivity by the Egyptians. It is not improbable that any written or oral histories given by Abraham regarding Sumerian flood stories and such continued to exist independently in the land of Canaan. If so, some of that material may been added to whatever was lost in Egypt and what was gained during the wandering in the desert of Moses and his tribe of Jews.
Moses probably was given Ten Commandments by God, and the book of Deuteronomy keeps a record of the origins of the strict Levitical tradition that undoubtedly began with Moses and his brother Aaron. Of course there does exist evidence that there were some similar laws in the region amidst other peoples, yet it is very difficult to trace those lines from a source. The Jews were ordered not to drink animal blood - obviously a good thing not to do if people are to develop a better cultural and agricultural technology and advance themselves as organisms.
The Bible may have been redacted or assembled from various existing books in the years after 1000 B.C. There is much scholarly inquiry on that topic. It is also possible that the first five books were just written by Moses and carried on to the court of David centuries later. It does seem however that at least some of the books of the Pentateuch are genuinely ancient and one day even earlier records mat be discovered going back as far as the court of David or Rehoboam-just four centuries before what has been found already.
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