I have often wondered: if the exodus out of Egypt is ahistorical, as is universally held in academic circles, then why was that story told? Are we too quick to dismiss the Bible without considering the merit to history?

This Reddit post gives an explanation that is plausible and sheds light on things. Canaanites were practically ruled by Egypt during the late Bronze Age. So the Biblical story remembers this period of Egyptian rule but moves it into Egypt itself while also exaggerating things. But we still have a kernel of truth to salvage, instead of dismissing the story outright. That kernel simply being that Egypt ruled there in the past. Their rule waned at one point, Britannica informs me.

So the above is assuming that the Israelites come from the Canaanites, which is the consensus view. The distinct identity only developed later.

Separate from this, I read a bit about the Hyksos. This page (trigger warning: modern-day 'Israel') informs us of the following:

One of the rulers is even mentioned in a later Egyptian text as committing the sin of only worshiping Ba’al instead of a plurality of gods, in a de facto monotheism. In the 14th century BCE, the idea of an individual god was adopted by an Egyptian king, which was later shunned and considered a heretic.

The Hyksos were a Semitic people who ruled over Egypt for a while since somewhere during the late 18th century BCE, and some of them were monotheists. Could it be that the Genesis account of Joseph and his brothers remembers a monotheism that does go back further? That is more far-fetched, but interesting to find out. But this is a very striking fact in that it is the first mention of monotheism that I'm aware of, predating even Akhenaten and in fact inspiring him.

@Tom_Bombadil