All people have a creation myth and all people have origin or founding legends and the Jewish people are no exception. In general creation myths come about in pre-scientific times and tell a story "explaining" how the world and its people came to be. They don't have to make sense in any kind of logical, let alone scientific, way, but usually contain an underlying moral message. The Biblical creation story can be found in the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis. God creates the world, the sun, the moon and the stars out of nothing. (I personally prefer the Norse creation myth where things are created out of the body parts of gods who themselves somehow sprung from primordial cows.) God then populates the world with animals and plants, and finally, humans. Humans disobey and there are consequences. Generations pass by without incident until God gets fed up and kills off all but one family - more consequences. Again, this is a creation myth, a story like any other story, yet religious absolutists insist on viewing it as fact.
Following the creation myth, Genesis follows up with the beginning of the "origin of the people" story, starting with Abraham and his immediate family and following up with the escape from slavery in Egypt and the conquest of "The Promised Land". There is no historical evidence that any of it happened or that any of the people in these stories existed. Although it's not at all surprising that an insignificant pastoral clan would attract anyone's attention. But, like all national origin stories it doesn't have to stand up to scrutiny. At some point someone wrote down what he had heard from oral tradition. Or more than one someone. Biblical scholars have long established that, contrary to being written by Moses, as tradition claimed, the Torah (The Law) showed signs of being written by at least four sources. They were initially called JEPD, for Jehovist (where God is called Yahweh, sometimes mistranslated as Jehovah), Elohist (where God is called Elohim), Priestly (for the laws regarding the priesthood in Leviticus) and Deuteronomist (for the largely separate Book of Deuteronomy - a second stating of The Law). This has led to identification of numerous other subdivisions, with the conclusion being that far from being a unified history of the creation and of the origins of the Jewish people, it is a collection of various versions that a later editor put together. You can see this even in early Genesis where there are two divergent versions of the creation of humans and contradictory accounts of the Flood.
The national origin accounts continue in the Books of Joshua and Judges (after break to enumerate the various laws, commandments and prohibitions mainly in Leviticus and Deuteronomy) which purport to document how the Twelve Tribes conquered Canaan - again with many contradictions. The Book of Ruth serves as an end to the "Judges", i.e. pre-monarchy, period with the Books of I & II Samuel, I & II Kings and I & II Chronicles (Samuel, Kings and Chronicles are all one book each in the Tanakh, but have been divided in the Greek translation and hence the Christian Bible) presented as a history of the monarchy beginning with Saul, David and Solomon and continuing through the destruction of the Kingdoms and the reign of the Persian Cyrus the Great. There are other books on various topics: Job, on the question of suffering; Esther, the story of a Jewish Queen in the Persian court; the books of "poetry", including Psalms and Proverbs; and finally the prophets - variations on a theme of "get your shit together!".
As an agnostic I have no reason to believe that these creation myths, national foundation legends, genealogies and tales of divine favor are any more true than the myths and legends of any other culture. It is in the best interests of both fundamentalist Christians and nationalistic Israelis and their allies to view these Biblical stories as true however. For Christians it provides an ancient pedigree to their own beliefs; for some Israelis it supports their belief that the modern nation of Israel is not merely the creation of the United Nations or a "colonizing entity", but the fulfillment of promises from God to his people. This is the explicit rationale for the Israeli Jewish Settlers who have been moving into the West Bank, ostensibly Palestinian land.
There is a story in The Bible about the Judean King Josiah who, in II Chronicles was said to have banned the worship of Baal and other gods throughout his kingdom and renovated the Temple. Some workmen supposedly found, hidden in The Temple, "The Book of The Law". There's scholarly disagreement about what this was, but my opinion is that Josiah, or his priests, had created the Torah, which had not previously existed, making a big deal about "finding" it, using it to justify Josiah's reforms. There's a lot of evidence that the religion of the Jewish people was a creation of the late monarchy period and the post-exile leadership among those who retuned to their former land. There's kernel of truth in Biblical accounts, but also much retroactive myth-building. But a major point that most Christians choose to overlook is that the Tanakh was not written for Christians, but for Jews. It was not meant for the Romans, the Greeks, the Hittites or the Americans. The only point of connection is that Jesus, the apocalyptic prophet of the End Times, was Jewish.
Not all early Christians agreed about what that connection or continuity between Judaism and Christianity was. Some viewed Christianity as just the next step in Jewish religion, others saw a complete break. The prevailing view was that the Tanakh was the Old Testament that had been supplanted by the new. Hints about Jesus the Messiah (i.e. the Christ) could be found throughout the Jewish scriptures, much to the surprise of any Jew.
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