If you understood Talmudism, it has never been based on Israelite history. But, rather based on the eternal conflict against Israelites. The Talmud, and the Haggadah along with it, was compiled as a result of the absolute destruction of Herod’s temple, in which every stone was carried away leaving no trace of it’s existence. In 66 CE, when the Roman general Vespasian swept into Jerusalem, Judaism was a cultic, oral religion, with Herod's massive temple as its lodestar. Herod was an Edomite and was the king of the jews. Everything happened in the temple complex. Four years later, Vespasian's son Titus razed it to the ground. "Where was God under the rubble?" wondered the Rabbis. "How to praise him now that the temple was gone?" The sages agreed: Jews would have to BECOME a people of the book, or they would disappear. Hence, the Sephardic Jews were NOT a people of the book before this time. "Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a 'Jew' or to call a contemporary Jew an 'Israelite' or a 'Hebrew'". -- 1980 Jewish Almanac, 1st chapter "Identity Crisis". "Jews began in the 19th century to call themselves Hebrews and Israelites in 1860". – Encyclopedia Judaica 1971 Vol 10:23.