I think we may very well, in many areas, get likelihood, but not certitude. We don't want certitude anyway, do we?

I try to look at the texts and say: Is there a way that I can find history in the texts and separate it from what may be the mythological elements, and I don't find any rules for that.

I have referred to [Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] on occasion, but I doubt that you will find his name in any of my indices. In my view, he is important in the history of interpretation; and that is a subject I have not approached directly.

Furthermore, I think there was, in fact, a celebration of Passover in the era of the Judges in which the epic was recited in the context of the central sanctuary. That tradition was displaced by the Feast of Enthronement beginning in the Solomonic era.

We are thrown back on the text, for the most part. Archaeology can give us background. It doesn't either confirm or disprove the Bible, but it may illuminate it.

I think we may very well, in many areas, get likelihood, but not certitude. We don't want certitude anyway, do we?

There was certainly an old law code which stands behind the earliest form of Deuteronomy. Presumably that is what was lost.