The first five books of the Bible, or pentateuch, were now presented as orally transmitted legend from various Hebrew tribes which reached written form only after the Exile, in the second half of the first millennium BC. These legends, the argument ran, were carefully edited, conflated and adapted to provide historical justification and divine sanction for the religious beliefs, practices and rituals of the post-Exilic Israelite establishment. The individuals described in the early books were not real people but mythical heroes or composite figures denoting entire tribes.4
