I agree. My point was, we need to remain aware that speculation is speculation, not absolute fact. And likewise, whatever criticism can tell us about scripture, it doesn't tell us what the scriptures historically meant, and what they mean to believers today. It analyzes the "body" of the text, but cannot perceive the "soul".
These historical events are given meaning through the theological grid that Scripture superimpose upon them ... The meaning given to these events as sacrilized secular history is the crucial factor.
Again I agree. I've said in the past that, whatever one thinks of the inspired nature or the reliability of the Hebrew scriptures, it at minimum can be said that they reflect what the Jewish people believed about their history and their relationship with God. It can alternatively be seen as God's gradual self-revelation (the "insider history") or as man's gradually evolving concept of the divine.