The NYT had an article about archaeology in Israel. When the state was established, the antrhopologists descended with their Bibles as a primary source. Perhaps fueld by the Holocaust, they wanted to find proof. They found it. Later anthropoligsts, Israeli ones, are very embarassed by the work of the first generation. Little proof has surfaced. The one find I found utterly fascinating was that YHWH was a minor household with a goddess wife, Ashera (). Little sculptures of both are found all over Israel in the many thousands. Some even date to the Biblical period. The crux of the NYT article was that the scientists now view the Bible as any book. They believe that it was commissioned to justify an Israelite nation-state when one developed. It may explain why so far no finds have identified King David or King Solomon.
Society views the Bible as holy. The Bible. One book. It wasn't even canonized until much later. I was shocked when I found out that Jesus only had a smattering of scriptures available to him.
I understand how it can seem to be a hoax. The writing styles and agendas are so different throughout the Bible. You can pick up the voices of the individual writers. Also, it is so contradictory. A decent hoax would be more consistent. There are two different accounts of the creation of humans within a few short chapters. If we would view the Bible as we view the Vedic literature or any other culture's sacred writings, we could understand much better.
Some scholar mentioned how tiny and insignificant Israel was on the world stage. How strange that a bunch of European peope would adopt it as their sacred text.
The chart is very good, IMO.