The exodus is an origin story, just as the story of the Patriarchs is. That doesn't mean there aren't remnants of actual history. But there is no verification of any of the characters in the portions of the Tanakh that occur before the Bronze Age Collapse. These are stories that were orally passed on for ages before being written down. Think of them as literature designed to teach, not factual history.
I was listening to a historian earlier this week who was saying how many scholars think it was only the tribe of Levi that came out of Egypt, due to the fact that all the names of Levites in the Bible are Egyptian based, whereas the names of people in the other tribes are Hebrew based. It is very interesting to keep up with the latest understandings of historians and archeologists.
First mention of Israel comes around 1200 BC - Mernephta Stele - The Egyptian King bragging about defeating or taking control of various cities -- the Israel not mentioned as a city but one of the pesky nomadic tribes - claims to have laid waste to the Seed of these people ... beat them back in some battle.
So .. clearly we already this tribe .. or group of tribes was already a going concern .. this is also right at the time when Egypt is going down .. having to beat off Tribal Nomads .. in addition to the Sea Peoples .. including the Palestinians who are colonizing southern cost of Canaan .. Phonecians and other Sea peoples to the North .. gaining prominene as what ever the heck happned explodes and Canaan is unclaimed territory in a complete state of anarchy .. due to major power vacuum ..
Egypt is weakening at this time .. many civil and slave revolts could well be occurring .. folks leaving or escaping the chaos in Israel moving into Canaan. The semetic people migrating out of Egypt - most of which would be Canaanites are migrating into their own people migrating back from where they came .. integrating back into the Nomadic Tribes and Cities under the vassalship of these tribes as these Nomadic Tribes come into their own.
The magic number 12 is just that .. when the history was written there were a large number of discombobulated tribes that could be remembered .. somehow united at times for attacks against cities .. The Bible itself tells of other Tribes joining with Israel early on .. probably completely true .. but you choose the number in reporting because is a Holy Number not that there are 12 +1 when you account for both counts .. as there are two. but no need to dither ..
Some group calling itself by the Canaanite high God EL -- the most high - Supreme one .. of the Canaanite Pantheon .. how YHWH gets fused into the mix is complicated .. YHWH is one of ELs Sons .. Asherah being the Incestual Mommy Goddess. of the Universe
The Tribe of Moses were the Midianites according to the Bible .. these hook up with a bunch of other tribes and start taking territory -- 200 years later with much success these Tribes manage to take Jerusalem ~ 1000 BC . and are quite the going concern -- like the Mongrels .. or the Kassites .. who came down from the Hills to Rule Babylon for centuries. ... The party lasts for some 200 years - then Assyria Shows up to establish the Old Order .. the Bronze age Collapse now over .. the Iron Age taken over. Israel is no more .. just a small number of Goat herders up in the Hills remain .. Jerusalem a very small town at this time .. a religious center .. but high in the hills so very well defended.
and thus pretty much ends the Story - Judah struggles on for another 120 years - still a raging den of Paganism until very close to the End when Marduk defeats YHWH -- the place where the name resides is destroyed.
Is a long time later that the history of these rag tag band of Nomads .. who had become as important as the Bedouins or the Kurds of Today .. reinvent themselves and write down some of their story after some 85 years under the rule of Babylon many people exiled as was the practice of the day... then Persia comes .. shortly after the remaining vestages of Judah .. are allowed some freedom to be a people and encouraged to practice their religious beliefs and govern themselves in quasi vassal servitude ~ 500 BC a Judaism is born .. a reinvented religion with a reinvented God .. as a backdrop to this new Religion is the history of their glorius past .. that folks still remember .. "kind of" but was truly glorious .. Israel was a going concern for 300 Years .. what got retained after the collapse is still buried in the ground for the most part .. Bits and pieces in the Bible offer a good contribution in some cases . to that history.