I've been so intrigued by this little mystery of mine that has bothered me to this day. How does our actual history and the history written in the bible correlate with each other? I mean, does the events in the Bible really happened in real history? Overall, I am asking about how our REAL history work, since from the beginning, if you say the Creation is still a mystery and a debatable topic, then fine, lets throw that one out of the question, but what about the events that happened RIGHT AFTER that, the ones we have written in history. How did the civilization work? First of all, i studied quite a bit of World History and I know about the different ages, like the Stone Age, Ice Age, etc. If those ages really happened, then when in the bible those times happened? If you just get what I am trying to ask and get into, written history and bible, differences of it. I hope you get the picture. Im just honestly confused right now so please don't mind my mixed questions, but it all pertains to the main question/idea I amazing trying to ask.
"If the Indus Valley River and the origina of it is written in history, what part of bible is it?" You may not answer this specific question, I'm just trying to convey it for you to better understand my main question. Hope Im not confusing you either.
Generally, no. The Bible is extremely useful as a historical document, and is indeed our main source of information about a huge number of ancient events, but immediately accepting anything at face value with no reservations, I'm sure Solomon said at some point, is rather silly.
Things like Exodus and the 40 years of desert wanderings probably did not happen; there has been a distinct lack of archeological evidence of Jews/a slave population/a mass exodus in Egypt the past 200 years, but nobody doubts the Exodus event was some sort of a revolutionary transformation in the course of Jewish history and religion.
On the other hand, we have found inscriptions that seemingly confirm the existence of the House of David -- affirming the basic narrative of Samuel and Kings -- although it wouldn't seem to be as expansive or all-encompassing as claimed in the Bible.
The events of creation and Genesis are so far beyond prehistory we can't say with any certainty if they happened as described. But we can still pick up some things, like how Noah's flood may well have been based on a specific event since many cultures living around the same area at the same time have stories of a cataclysmic flood.
There is no evidence for the great Tower of Babel, I don't think, but imo it does reflect the fact that the first great civilizations of Sumer and Akkad and eventually Babylon rose not far at all from the Israelites homeland. This may be at the heart of the question you're asking, especially about the Indus Valley civilization: Would you really expect the Bible to contain the unabridged world's history? With faith maybe it could be the world's history according to the Jews, but are you expecting descriptions of Mayan funeral rituals and Japanese naval warfare and Polynesian family life?
But did God hold mud in his hands as he molded Man, then breathe life into him from his nostrils? No one can say.
I would like to build off of the answer /u/namesrhardtothinkof gave a tad rather than repeating points already provided, if that's alright :)
As has been alluded to, the evolution of the Old Testament as we now know it is lengthy. The text was supposedly synthesized by the Septuagint in the 3rd c. BCE at the earliest-- an event which famously involved 70 rabbis being told to agree on what they would include in the Jewish scripture when it was translated to Koine Greek. Any way you slice it, prior to physically writing these stories down, the Israelites were probably not a homogenous group-- the Old Testament and archaeological record agree here-- and tribes would have bickered and allied and had different traditions. When they were told to bring their traditions together to create one Jewish theological identity, things had to be substantiated and compromised, preserved and sacrificed.
What this means is that whatever exact historicity existed in these texts was lost, creating a series of moral lessons and shared stories that were deemed more universal than others. The previous reply has already mentioned the recurring great flood narrative, but many others are shared as well. Sargon of Akkad, for example, was said to have been adopted as an infant after his mother set him adrift on the Euphrates in a basket made of reeds. Another personal favourite of mine is the shared root of Samson's name ("man of the sun") with the Mesopotamian sun god Šamaš, particularly when you consider how similar the name Delilah is to the word for "night" (lailah) in most Semitic languages. Both of these examples should not be seen as universal truth, but rather the expansion points to examine the potential for cross-cultural influence.
With all this in mind, consider to yourself what you did on this date a year ago. Unless you are in the habit of keeping a daily journal, it can be difficult to recall what you had for breakfast, whether you went to the grocery store, what time you fell asleep. However, just because those things were not written down does not mean you did not do them. If you were asked to recall, you may hazard a guess; perhaps you listen to someone else answer the question first, and let their own recollection influence your own ("We all brush our teeth, right?") You may, in the process of relaying your version of 9 September 2015, unintentionally lie because you cannot recall the exact details.
The same can be said for written history.