Response to OP:
About as factual as the moon being made of cheese. I mean if a story can't go from one side of the room to the other at a party without becoming totally different what makes you think the story can remain true over hundreds or thoudsands of years.
The Torah is the most accurate translation of a historical in the world. It as it was told to Moses.
The great success of Jewish tradition is the meticulous transmission of the Torah text. But actually how accurate is is? How do we know that the Torah we have today is the same text given on Mount Sinai?
The Torah was originally dictated from God to Moses, letter for letter. From there, the Midrash (Devarim Rabba 9:4) tells us:
Before his death, Moses wrote 13 Torah Scrolls. Twelve of these were distributed to each of the 12 Tribes. The 13th was placed in the Ark of the Covenant (with the Tablets). If anyone would come and attempt to rewrite or falsify the Torah, the one in the Ark would "testify" against him. (Likewise, if he had access to the scroll in the Ark and tried to falsify it, the distributed copies would "testify" against him.)
How were the new scrolls verified? An authentic "proof text" was always kept in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, against which all other scrolls would be checked. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Sages would periodically perform global checks to weed out any scribal errors.
WRITING A TORAH SCROLL
To eliminate any chance of human error, the Talmud enumerates more than 20 factors mandatory for a Torah scroll to be considered "kosher." This is the Torah's built-in security system. Should any one of these factors be lacking, it does not possess the sanctity of a Torah scroll, and is not to be used for a public Torah reading.
The meticulous process of hand-copying a scroll takes about 2,000 hours (a full-time job for one year). Throughout the centuries, Jewish scribes have adhered to the following guidelines:
A Torah Scroll is disqualified if even a single letter is added.
A Torah Scroll is disqualified if even a single letter is deleted.
The scribe must be a learned, pious Jew, who has undergone special training and certification.
All materials (parchment, ink, quill) must conform to strict specifications, and be prepared specifically for the purpose of writing a Torah Scroll.
The scribe may not write even one letter into a Torah Scroll by heart. Rather, he must have a second, kosher scroll opened before him at all times.
The scribe must pronounce every word out loud before copying it from the correct text.
Every letter must have sufficient white space surrounding it. If one letter touched another in any spot, it invalidates the entire scroll.
If a single letter was so marred that it cannot be read at all, or resembles another letter (whether the defect is in the writing, or is due to a hole, tear or smudge), this invalidates the entire scroll. Each letter must be sufficiently legible so that even an ordinary schoolchild could distinguish it from other, similar letters.
The scribe must put precise space between words, so that one word will not look like two words, or two words look like one word.
The scribe must not alter the design of the sections, and must conform to particular line-lengths and paragraph configurations.
A Torah Scroll in which any mistake has been found, cannot be used, and must be fixed within 30 days, or buried.
SUCCESS OF THE SYSTEM
Maintaining the accuracy of any document as ancient and as large as the Torah is very challenging even under the best of circumstances.
But consider that throughout history, Jewish communities were subject to widespread persecutions and exile. Over the last 2,000 years, Jews have been spread to the four corners of the world, from Yemen to Poland, from Australia to Alaska.
myLot - How accurate is The Torah vs the Bible?
It is pretty much a given that although the US civil war was fought over state's rights, the right the Confederate states was most concerned about was the right to own people. In other words if the US had not had slavery it may not have had a civil war.
It used to be said that history was written by the winners, but that axiom changed in the 19th Century and especially in the 20th Century when historians from the losing side were able to have their points of view published. A prime example of that is southerner Shelby Foote's superb history of the US civil war. I think if you read it, especially the first few chapters of the history which focus on the origins of the war, you will find that slavery played a major part in the development of the attitudes that led to war.
The term slavery was used to admit or deny state hood to the territories, but was not a key issue for actually going to war, I am not saying it wasen't one of many reasons for the war, just not that important at the time. When Shelby wrote his fine book, it was slanted to the politics of the mid 1950's and descrimination was waking up in this country. Emphisis on the cause of the war began to surround slavery. I read his book back when I was 17-18 or so.
