Few historians think the accounts given in Genesis-Judges accurately portray the way in which the Israelites settled and came to dominate the Holy Land. There is simply no archeological evidence that people wandered in the Sinai Desert on the scale mentioned there, nor that the area known as Canaan was invaded by some massive force from the outside.
But the Bible is still seen as having some historical foundation. There was a time when ancient documents were considered prima facie suspect. That time is no longer. Nowadays most ancient texts that deal with historical issues and figures are thought to have some kind of historical basis. And what is clear is that at some certain time the Israelites did come to dominate that region. Some explanation for what caused this has to be proffered and a return from exile makes some sense.
The general scholarly consensus is that some subset of the Israelite people did live in captivity for some extended period of time in Egypt. In the meantime, related tribes lived under the foot of Canaanite nations, in a kind of serfdom situation. Their enslaved relatives escaped from Egyptian rule and re-entered the land, disrupting the tribal balance and creating a 'peasant revolt' that eventually, and over a long period of time, led to Israelite control of the region.
There is a lot of evidence for this in the text of the Bible itself. For one thing, Joshua and Judges give quite different accounts of the rise of the Hebrews in some areas, and those accounts conflict. Judges indeed gives the impression of a kind of gradual peasant revolt, whereby the balance of power was changed.
There is also the issue of the splits between the North and the South. The nation of Israel split into two, with the norther ten tribes forming nation which continued to carry the name Israel, and the southern tribes of Benjamin and Judah forming the southern nation of Judah. This split reflected tensions that existed long before, as is evidenced in the civil war recounted in Judges 19-21.
There were also important cultural differences and religious difference. In the North, the name used to identify the God of the Hebrews is El, which just means "God". This was also, however, the name of the chief God of many Canaanite tribes. In the south, the name used for God was "Yahweh", which some believe is of Midianite origin (lending more credence to the proposition that at least some of Exodus is true, as Moses is said to have lived among the Midianites).
In the South, it was believed that true worship should take place in the Temple of Solomon and there alone. Those who worshiped at local altars known as "high places" are indicted as sinners. In the North, the high places were considered normal and perfectly fine. After all isn't God everywhere? Elijah and other northern prophets say nothing against these practices.
Nor do they prophesy against the bull set up at Shechem, which was used to represent Yahweh. It was believed in the North that bulls and calves could be used to represent Yahweh. The South saw this as a terrible idolatry and deeply sinful. But in the North a graven image of Yahweh was considered perfectly fine. (Now with this in mind go read Exodus 32. It will change the text for you.)
In the North kingship was a matter of coups and military might. In the south David's line maintained power for a remarkable period of time. In the North, backsliding into polytheism was far more common, and the anger of God was directed through the prophets at worship of Baal and Asherah alongside El. In the South, this kind of apostasy didn't take place until very late, when Manasseh took over. The main prophets there spoke out against the idolatry of money and political idolatry.
All of these indicate a continued influence of Canaanite culture. It seems clear to me that in the North Canaanite indigenous culture was far more influential than in the south. This buoys up the theory that only a few of the tribes lived in Egypt, probably only Judah and Benjamin. And that is our story for today, children.
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