she’s married to a guy who’s not great. He’s rich, so at least she’s well looked after.

Her rich husband refuses to give David supplies, and she gives David supplies before David straight up attacks her husband. She has to fall to her knees and beg David to not kill her husband and all of his men. And David is like thank God you were sent to me because otherwise there would have been nothing left of your husband. And so the next morning Abigail tells her husband what she did and he just straight up dies and then David comes around and is like hey you wanna be my wife except you know David is armed and shit so what choice does she have? And then David immediately marries another woman.

and the Bible is so complementary about Abigail. She’s smart and beautiful. She’s praised for speaking so well—sucking up to David so well, when David should have treated her well regardless!! She brought him supplies!!!! Why does she have to bend over backwards and grovel at his feet?

Like, "scholars don't know what this verse means, it might indicate something about G-d's own sinful nature!" Or, hear me out, Adam was created from Dust/dirt and will return to Dust/dirt, since it was stated in Genesis 2, 7: "And G-d hath created Man from the dust of the Earth..." (free translation by me, from the Hebrew "וייצר ה' א־להים את האדם עפר מן האדמה"), thus "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (the translation Pullman uses for Genesis 3, 19. Original Hebrew reads "כי עפר אתה ואל עפר תשוב"). Notice how it's the same words in both situations? It's not really that puzzling, what the hell.

Then there's also the additional verse and a half about how the Man and Woman suddenly realized they're different from all animals. Because the previous verses obviously never indicated they were different to begin with.

Because God could have just made a prophet a king, right? Wouldn’t that make more sense - like just make a Moses-like guy the king. Maybe it’s because God wasn’t really set on the whole “king” idea in the first place. Wouldn’t God need a mouthpiece uncorrupted by power?

Biblical criticism has its place, and I'm sorry to say I didn't study much of it. Growing up, as I have, in an Orthodox Jewish context, my interaction with it was limited. I was exposed to the Documentary Hypothesis through the ideas of rabbi Mordechai Breuer, who adopted it into a more religious compatible version. Relatively recently (about two years ago) I went about reading Rabbi Abraham Geiger's Urschrift, which is a foundational book on the topic - though it's very outdated, having been written during the mid 19th century.

When discussing with people, regardless of my position on the background assumptions (such as biblical criticism), I would usually attempt to see things from their PoV. It's true that sometimes that PoV is just bigoted or ignorant: in the latter case I might to inform, especially if I know I'm better informed. In the former... Well, that's a case where conversation pretty much ceases to work, especially if said bigotry is turned towards me. So, as a person who's not well informed on biblical criticism, I was willing to accept the assumptions of the person I was conversing with. The fact is, even if said assumptions are completely valid they bore no relevance to the point of the post. Both because when reading the Torah and Tanach in their fullness from a Jewish perspective such claims would never rise or will be disputed immediately - note that anyone who studied the Torah by order will already be familiar with this commandment and interpret giving the firstborn to G-d as redeeming them, and because even if the Torah includes immoral commandments, it doesn't make it any less of the foundational text of the Jewish people as well as the Jewish religion. You can oppose it morally while acknowledging its importance to Jewish culture.

Beyond that, it's not impossible that biblical criticism, if it claims what said commenter said it does, is simply wrong about that. The oldest manuscripts of the Tanach we have are the Qumran scrolls, which while I don't know if they include these portions from Shemot, I know are basically very similar to our version of scripture. There still are differences, but not to this degree. Factually, we can't know if the Documentary Hypothesis is correct. It can be a very good guess, well based in contradictions within the texts and independent historical knowledge. But due to various factors, we just don't really know that. If I were to take Biblical studies at University I'm sure I'd have had much smarter things to say on the subject. In the meantime I don't. I'm sure biblical studies have biases galore - for one, I won't be surprised to find most of them are Christians or ex Christians and carry with them the biases from understanding the Bible through that lens - but it's not really for me to say any of it with certainty.

However, I do think it's important to note that I think foundational works of a certain culture should be interpreted and understood within the context of that culture. So saying that Jews are no better than non-Jewish biblical scholars in explaining the significance of biblical verses to them is rather odd.

I'm afraid not. However, I am in possession of a sleeved coat! It's great, really. Nons of my ten brothers have one, they work in the field with the sheep and the grains and sleeves tend to get in the way. But father made me a special coat with sleeves, because I stay in the tent with him! I'm sure my brothers understand that I'm just fated to continue the line and to lead our family, after all I told them about my dreams with their sheafs bowing down to me and the sun and moon and eleven stars doing so as well. They joked around about it, but I'm sure they understand.