applying aincient religious texts (esp the bible) to anthropology?

[bholdr]

I'm watching the history channel, a show about finding physical evidence for the biblical flood, and it got me thinking:

Often, when delving into aincient history, the common and believeble historical sources, writings by greek scholors, roman documents, etc, are not enough to satisfactorily explain the aincient world. anthropoligists, geologists, historians, etc, will sometimes use religious sources like the bible to shed some additional light on their feild of study. I'm a history buff, but generally not aincient history, so i don't know:

1: how much creedence is the bible given as a historical refrence (by serious students of history, etc- not by the curches)? are the facts, dates, and stories that are in the bible (conquest of jeruselem, fall of babylon, etc) considered to be accurate enough to use in a scientific manner?

2: do you (posters) think that the bible is historically accurate and useful as a source of info about antiquity? are the stories in it considered to be mostly fact, or allegory, or metaphor... or myth?

3: what about other regions and religions? i am fascinated by aincient native american civalizations... links?

i'd like replies/links with a scientific/scholoraly perspective, please, but religious perspectives are welcome too.

thanks!

From what I hear there is actually evidence for two great floods taking place (well moreover, massive waves that left floods in their wake).

It is speculated that the crashing waters came from a large object from space colliding somewhere in the Earth's oceans, thereby creating two huge cataclysmic waves (with the first being more powerful than the second). I think the physics behind this is supposed to be similar to what would happen if you throw a small stone straight down into some shallow waters.

The Bible isnt the only book that has references to global flood(s). I think there are also some other "myths" found around the world as well.

The fact that similar stories are found around the world doesnt mean its true necessarily though, it just means that we should further use our current technology to figure out if it really did happen.