Adler's book seems ignorant of verses like Amos 8:5, which demonstrates in passing that even evildoers in the less religious northern kingdom were observing Shabbat as early as the 8th century BCE.
Similarly, the lack of hewn mikvaot from before the Hasmonean period does not demonstrate that purity laws were not kept at this point (observance of these laws is taken as a given in much earlier sources like Samuel 1 20:26 and Samuel 2 11:4), but rather that people bathed in bathtubs (some of which have been found in digs) and did not know of a prohibition on "sheuvin" (which some rishonim say is only a rabbinic prohibition to begin with).
Adler's book seems ignorant of verses like Amos 8:5, which demonstrates in passing that even evildoers in the less religious northern kingdom were observing Shabbat as early as the 8th century BCE.
Similarly, the lack of hewn mikvaot from before the Hasmonean period does not demonstrate that purity laws were not kept at this point (observance of these laws is taken as a given in much earlier sources like Samuel 1 20:26 and Samuel 2 11:4), but rather that people bathed in bathtubs (some of which have been found in digs) and did not know of a prohibition on "sheuvin" (which some rishonim say is only a rabbinic prohibition to begin with).
See my response to your same comment, here:
https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/relying-on-a-miraculous-victory/comment/190143942