Technically it was not that attached to Christianity, until the reformation and the printing press. A whole lot of people were killed trying to get it out of the past and into the present. Then along came historical criticism, and I doubt trying to discredit or bury it will change anything for future generations who accept it for what it is.
@ValkaD'Ur.
There is plenty of evidence. The fact that a document which instead of using debate, or eliminated all competition, that we are used to using as an ideological filter, the publishers relied on internal means to keep the body in tack. They were not interested in providing evidence that what was being copied from generation to generation was provided. They were told to make sure no mistakes were made in the process. The Old Testament was the most copied and scribed, by several different groups, body of writing during the thousand plus years of its formation. That is what I am trying to point out. That is what the historical criticism of the 18th century brought out. I understand the claims that information may have been added or exaggerated. There is proof that several different sources attempted to maintain, while adding to this body of work new and every day experiences. But there is no proof that any information was made up as re-writing any previous history, because there was never a need to prove what was being copied down from generation to generation. There was no questioning of what was being written down. Unlike the secrecy of most ancient written or oral stories that were only given to the initiated. It was not until the creation of Latin, that the Bible was removed from public availability and only used by approved officials.
Were there times that the Jews or Hebrews attempted to hide this document from the public? Of course, but that was because the rulers did not want the public aware of what this document had to say. The process may have even been interrupted or stopped, but it was never completely killed. I do not think that it can just be relegated as a religious text though, like all religious text. It had a civil, and judicial component built in, besides the religious. Neither was it supposed to be hidden or private, but available for everyone who called themselves Hebrew or Jewish and all those they had dealings with them. The civil, judicial, and religious were all included in maintaining copies of this work from generation to generation. That was the built in check and redundancy to preserve from the beginning of the work, until it was considered closed and completed.
