THE HEBREW BIBLE AS A HISTORICAL SOURCE

All historians of the Near East in the first millennium are confronted with the question of the historicity of the account in the Hebrew Bible.
The text provides a detailed and engaging narrative of the history of two states, lsrael and Judah, from their formation in the tenth century to their disappearance in the late eighth and early sixth centuries respectively. It also presents a reconstruction of the earlier histories of the region's inhabitants from the time of creation to the establishment of a large unified kingdom under David and Solomon in the tenth century. Scholars have written countless books and articles on whether or not material can be used in historical reconstructions, and what Biblical passages are more reliable than others. They have produced numerous histories of lsrael and Judah, ranging from a paraphrase of the Bible to an almost complete rejection of any of its information as historically useful, and have engaged in bitter and unforgiving disputes over the issue, which cannot be resolved from the Biblical text itself.
There are many elements that make the use of the Bible as a historical source suspect. We do not know the date of composition of most of the component books, and it seems safe to assume that, in the format known to us, they are from the period after the Babylonian exile in the late sixth century. The anonymous authors used earlier works, but we cannot date those accurately, nor establish how they were reworked.
More importantly, the authors did not intend the writing to be historically objective but as a polemic in defense of a people and its religion. They saw the history of humankind through the lens of how one related to the god Yahweh. Many of the facts stated in the Bible can be confirmed through extra-Biblical sources, textual and archaeological. But, even here, one has to be careful not to force interpretation to coincide with the Biblical text. The names of kings, queens, and others can be found in the sources of lsrael and Judah's neighbors or in short inscriptions from those states themselves. But the context in which they appear is often vague outside the Bible. Scholars have become increasingly critical about the use of the Biblical text in historical reconstructions. For instance, they now often no longer regard the accounts of the Patriarchs as reflective of a second-millennium reality. But many scholars still give great credence to other parts where no outside confirmation is available. For example, many believe in the existence of a large kingdom under David and Solomon, but this cannot be ascertained and seems unlikely in a setting where all Syro-Palestinian states were very small.
However critical the scholar's attitude toward the Biblical text, it is impossible to ignore it completely as it is such a powerful narrative. Many ideas and customs can be derived from it, but the histories of lsrael and Judah need to be based on other sources. On the other hand, certain Biblical books provide us with insights about the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires not available elsewhere. They show the perspective of people living in the shadows of, and conquered by, these empires. For example, the Assyrian meddling with the succession of kingship in lsrael and Judah, and its military campaigns there, can be studied through Biblical and Mesopotamian sources.  While there are often discrepancies between the two, they clearly deal with the same events and confirm the basic outlines of the interactions between the empires and lsrael and Judah. Such information is not available from other Syro-Palestinian states.

By Marc Van De Mieroop in the book 'A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC', Second Edition, 2007, Blackwell Publishing Malden USA, Oxford UK, Carlton, Victoria Australia. p.223. Edited to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.