God Yahweh Allah was a volcano.

[popeyespappy]

based on language and writing style

Pap. Our oldest fragments of the Torah - which includes the exodus bullshit story - are from the Greek Septuagint and date from the 3d century BC. The earliest Hebrew texts are the Dead Sea Scrolls which date from the mid 2d century BC at the earliest and a significant portion of those are in Greek and Aramaic anyway.

Frankly, that sounds like a "Hail Mary" to use a particularly unsuitable analogy for an atheist board! Translating stuff into Hebrew from Greek and then claiming that it is "early" seems like a real stretch.

Some of the anachronisms in the Exodus story are:

Anachronisms

The late origins of the Exodus story are evident also in a number of anachronisms which characterise it. For example, Pharaoh's fear that the Israelites might ally themselves with foreign invaders makes little sense in the context of the New Kingdom, when Canaan was part of an Egyptian empire and Egypt faced no enemies in that direction, but does make sense in a 1st millennium context, when Egypt was considerably weaker and faced invasion first from the Persians and later from Seleucid Syria.[26] Other anachronisms point to a period in the mid-1st millennium: Ezion-Geber, (one of the Stations of the Exodus), for example, dates to a period between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE with possible further occupation into the 4th century BCE,[27] while the place-names on the Exodus route which can be identified - Goshen, Pithom, Succoth, Ramesses and Kadesh Barnea - point to the geography of the 1st millennium rather than the 2nd.[28]

The quote above is from Wiki but it cites John Van Seters "Geography of the Exodus."

I don’t know Min. It is possible that enough examples of an older style of language survive in the story to identify its early origins. Plus your possible 8th century BC date isn’t all that far off from my possibly as old as 900 years BC one. None of that means the story wasn’t embellished both before and after that date range.

You’re certainly more the historian than I am. As such I’d like your opinion on the following hypothesis. I consider it a left leaning blend of Biblical minimal and maximal isms on the origins of Yahweh, monotheism, Exodus and other parts of the Old Testament story. I find it to be compatible with the views of Finkelstein and Silberman.

Yahweh originated as a god of Bedouins from the hills in the Edom region. The concept of monotheism was introduced to the followers of Yahweh through contact with 18th dynasty Egypt. It was brought by refugees (or their descendants) from Amarna following the death of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) and is the much embellished basis for the Exodus story.

These beliefs were brought further north by the Edom Bedouins after the Bronze Age collapse which included many of the Canaanite city states. A blending of the beliefs of the remnants of the Canaanites and new comers from the surrounding area occurred in what would become ancient Israel as the void left by the Bronze Age collapse was slowly filled. The blending took centuries and included pieces of mythology from Canaan, Bedouins, Egypt and the Babylonian/Samarian cultures. During this time both poly and monotheistic factions coexisted.