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Notes -
As a layman I think David is usually where both more conservative and more skeptical scholars can agree we can start looking for historicity. Some others push it till the Omrides but I think it's hard to argue that the mythicist side wouldn't have used the lack of anything like a stele as an argument so what's good for the goose and all that.
I guess I'm more of a mainstreamer here: things like the Exodus and Patriarchs seem like a total mess historically. Even if you grant there is some historic core you'll never agree on what it is. David's time seems like a good enough point to say the figures in the Bible have slipped out of myth.
I have seen some of Baden's interviews online, and read his Composition of the Pentateuch which is why I picked up the book. It's early days but I tend to lean towards what I think is Baden's own conclusion: there's a lot more explaining things in a more flattering light in David's legend than you'd expect if he didn't exist.
Which makes a good contrast with the show.
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