Page 4 - Research 1.0

The unexplained collapse of many Mediterranean civilizations
lead to regional instability and the rise of the "Sea
Peoples", one of which were the Philistines who conquered 5
coastal cities sometime around 1150 BCE.

What DNA and archaeological evidence tells us is that there
was no large influx of peoples into the Levant, no cultural
changes, no pottery style changes, nothing to indicate a
change in lifestyles that would indicate a significant change
in the makeup of the population. What the evidence tells us
is that the culture and population of the Levant had been

Canaanite since the third millennium BCE and remained so
during the biblical period. The 'Israelite' or Jewish
identity arose from within the Canaanite population, not
from outside. Even among today's Jewish peoples, despite
mixing with other ethnicities, their DNA is mostly Canaanite,
the highest percentage of which is among those whose ancestors
remained in the Middle East; the Mizrahi Jews.The Hebrew
language and writing both derived from earlier Canaanite
forms.

What the evidence shows is that the Old Testament was written
during and shortly after the Babylonian Exile or Babylonian
Captivity which lasted 60 years (597 BCE to 539 BCE). The
story of Moses and the Exodus was pure fabrication meant to
unify a diverse illiterate population. The supposed Egyptian
Captivity was the founding myth of the Jewish religion and
was a simile for the Babylonian Captivity.

Now fundamentalist practitioners of the Abrahamic religions
start with the premise that the biblical stories are correct
and that any evidence to the contrary must be false. To do
this, they (insensibly) begin to twist facts to suit theories.
That is the antithesis of science and is very dishonest. Truth
is determined by the evidence.

It seems many Christians deeply resent any questioning of
biblical accounts, yet there are Jewish theologians who
reluctantly accept archeological and genetic evidence: