Since the Pentateuch took or started to take its current shape during the reigns of David and Solomon they are demonstratively in a different class from Abe, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, et al. It's not a continuum since the writers had no more ability than we do to investigate the truth of the stories they were reducing to writing.

The rooting of the tradition is not proof of historicity. As Socrates faced execution he discussed the Homeric characters as if they were real. He (of all people) understood their mythical quality or at least our inability to know their veracity.

Come on. Who says? The Introduction to Fagles' Iliad addresses and refutes this bald assertion. It cites The Life of Charlemagne by a monk who was a servant of Charlemagne, that is objectively at least as credible as the Roman historians' writings or Josephus, and compares it to Song of Roland, roughly France's Iliad. Song of Roland is an epic poem, originally orally transmitted over many generations, and ultimately the first litary work in French, about the tragic conclusion of Charlemagne's ill-fated invasion of Islamic Spain. The introduction to Fagles' Iliad (written by another world class Classics scholar, Bernard Knox) notes that the Life of Charlemagne shows Song of Roland is mostly outright fabrication. For example in the ultimate scene it has Muslims attacking Christians, Charlemagne's rear guard, when it was really (according to the Life of Charlemagne) Basque Christians attacking.

Yes - the Bible is not an "epic poem"
 

Most of it is not written in dramatic literary style, some of it is written with a painfully dull insistence on recounting technical detail. The endless and otherwise pointless data laid out in Numbers and other books are evidence that many of the biblical authors were never merely about propagandizing - they were actually trying to record facts.

The two texts are, on most fronts, a bit of a stretch to compare. One was written for the express purpose of aggrandizing a monarch the other is an aggregation of many texts and sets of information.

And in fact - the extensive and non-literary data presented in the books of Moses strongly suggests that there was something more than an oral tradition (like a proto-text that we simply don't have any more) underpinning the whole thing.

The Iliad has catalogues and geneologies, and even biographical sketches oozing with verisimilitude dropped into the story just in time to generate a wonderful poetic pathos. If you agree, as you have suggested, that the Iliad and the OT have very similar or analogous claims to historicity, we are back to the professor from Tel Aviv's and my original point, and I think we have a deal.

Rent this documentary
 

it gives you the genesis of all this: http://www.amazon.com/50-Years-War-I.../dp/B00004TX2W

Interviews many of the people who were actually there from both sides of the conflict.

Great, great stuff that helps explain the current mess.