prove that the jews were held as slaves by egyptians without using the bible!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

At the risk of sounding like an appalling modernist bigot... we know relatively little* about anything that happened (below an elite level) before the 1790s or so. As you go further back from that point, what's known slowly shrinks away until there's... well... essentially nothing, other than what can be worked out from the archaeological record. Which is, and no offense to archaeologists is intended here, not a lot. Of course when you're looking at information on events relating to elites, the pattern is much less ordered. But even so, after a certain point the amount of non-archaeological information starts drying up to almost nothing as well. Most events in the OT are way beyond that point.

In other words, this is a totally unreasonable question based on some seriously dubious assumptions.

*That is, compared to what we know about just about anything more recent. I mean, there's more primary information on living, housing and working conditions in ninteenth century Manchester than there is for the entire country at all times before then. Seriously.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As for numbers inflation being proof that the Bible is spinning a total yarn... I guess accounts that attest to the existence of the Battle of Thermopylae should be thrown away completely as well, because they claim the Persian Army to have numbered over 1,000,000 men (Herodotus puts the number at almost 2 million)... a near impossibility.

To say nothing of Roman accounts which, if taken at face value, appear to indicate that they committed genocide every single time they won a battle.

If we're looking at the OT as a primary source for serious history, then there's only one way it which it can be considered; as the collected oral history and traditions of one particular society.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's not even that- its the oral history/traditions of a priveliged and semi-literate elite which is subject to manipulation in order to support power structures. It's worth very little as oral history.

Well, yeah. Though it isn't any different to anything else from that period in that regard. Reality is, that if we're looking for hard-ish facts from that period, the only thing out there is archaeology.

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Inverted commas being important as no marxist historian without them thinks that any oral history has any worth

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Inverted commas

Is that what you call them?

Yes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't know... the first one is obvious enough.