A lot of it is also about how media portrays “biblical archeology / history” and tends to talk over the actual academics.

Like I remember a scholar a few years back who wrote a very thoughtful book about the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. It was an examination of how different groups around the world have used the legend as a basis to form a communal identity and to orient themselves in relation to their religious texts. And of course media ran the story as ‘new book located the lost tribes of Israel’ or something to that effect.

(Of course, the tribes were never “Lost”, the Hebrew bible says exactly where they went and what they did, which is totally supported by the archeology and external sources and also common sense: the Assyrians forcibly exiled their political elites, many fled south as refugees to Judea, and rural commoners stayed where they were, with many continuing to practice the Israelite tradition all the way through to when Judea was re-established in the Persian period aka ‘the people of the land’ as they’re called in Ezra-Nehemiah).