[metmom]

My understanding is that the Bible has turned out to be very accurate historically. At one time the Bible was criticized for mentioning peoples and civilizations that there was no record of. Many of the civilzations that were mentioned in the OT were later found out to have existed. Many other historical documents are given more credibility that the Bible. For some reason, it appears that people are far more willing to question the credibility of the Bilbe than other sources.

[Accygirl]

The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is accurate as A. a moral and religious document and B. a cultural/ anthropological study of the Near East circa the 9th/8th century B.C However, it isn't a historical document in which you could say X happened and then Y happened, etc.

In reality, no historical document from the ancient world could be considered accurate. For instance, Josephus' history of the Jewish Revolt, considered the definitive history of that time period, was biased because Josephus was more interested in explaining to his fellow Jews why they shouldn't have been revolting.