I should add here: while the ideas of Finkelstein are quite popular as part of a mystical movement that makes the strong connections you read above in Finkelstein's post (you can Google this and find a plethora of blogs and even quasi-religious movements that share these views), they are not accepted or advanced by either Jewish or mainstream academia.
Though the most popular critical theory in Judaism is that the monotheistic God-concept may have originated with the Moabites, this does not mean that a theophany closer to the traditional narrative is completely dismissed.
And while I am not saying that the theories presented by Finklestein are impossible or without merit. It is just, again, the work of people who are not Jews who for whatever reasons, often suggest that their views are of more merit than my own people's.
