Questioner:
Do you mean that the story of Noah’s descendants is a kind of myth that entered the Book of Genesis at the hands of people?
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Rabbi:
Not necessarily at the hands of people, but perhaps that too is possible.
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Questioner:
Regarding the figure of Madai: from reading Wikipedia I saw that the people of “Media” came into being around 1000 BCE, and the Median Empire was first established in 678 BCE. As for what you said, that these figures could be archetypes or myths, that works out with figures like Egypt and Canaan, but with the Median Empire there is a bit of a problem, because how can one say there was a myth or archetype of the “Median” type before the people of “Media” even existed?
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Rabbi:
First, 1000 BCE is still before the giving of the Torah. Second, those datings are highly dubious (!), like the entire historical field, and therefore I am usually not especially troubled by the questions they raise. Third, it is clear that whoever inserted this into the Torah was already familiar with Media, otherwise how did he come up with precisely that name? At most, it happened after the fact (as you described regarding Brazil). As I wrote at the beginning of my remarks, I do not think there is any need to assume anachronism here. So I do not see what problem the matter of Media raises.
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Questioner:
When I wrote 1000 BCE I meant the year minus 1000 (the giving of the Torah was around minus 1300, which is 300 years before the formation of the people of “Media”).
Even if we say that the datings are dubious, from the biblical story itself we see that the Egyptian and Canaanite peoples appear in it, whereas the people of “Media” do not appear in it.
Even if we say that the insertion of “Media” into the Torah happened after the fact, we would still have to say that the insertion itself took place several hundred years after the Torah was given, no?
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Rabbi:
Indeed. And even if you rely on the dating, there are several verses that were apparently inserted later (such as the kings who reigned in Edom, “to this very day,” and others). This has already been discussed in several books that have come out recently.
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Questioner:
But if we accept the fact that changes were made in the body of the Torah itself, doesn’t that undermine the binding force of Jewish law? (After all, the Talmud derives heaps upon heaps of laws from the tiniest stroke of a letter in the Torah.)
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Rabbi:
Indeed. The assumption is that the entire text is precise, and even if there were additions, they were by a prophet. But mistakes are possible, as in anything else. As long as we do not know that something is a mistake, the assumption is that it is not.
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Questioner:
Following up on this question, I came across a Talmudic discussion of problems of anachronism in the Torah:
Babylonian Talmud, tractate Ketubot 10b
“What is a widow? Rav Hana of Baghdad said: ‘Widow’—because of the maneh. With regard to a widow from betrothal, what can be said? Since this one is called a widow, that one too is called a widow. But regarding ‘widow’ as written in the Torah, what can be said? That in the future the rabbis would institute for her a maneh. But does Scripture write about the future? Yes, as it is written: ‘And the name of the third river is Tigris; it is the one that flows east of Assyria,’ and Rav Yosef taught: Assyria—this is Seleucia. But did it yet exist? Rather, it is on account of what would exist in the future; here too, it is on account of what would exist in the future.”

In your opinion, is this a reasonable claim to make also in the case of Media (and in general)?
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Rabbi:
The Sages do not see this as anachronism, because they assume that the Torah was written and given entirely by the Holy One, blessed be He, at Sinai. Therefore they attribute it to God’s foreknowledge. Anachronism is a different suggestion: there are later additions, and when they describe earlier events, they do so in the terminology and language current at the time of their composition.
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Questioner:
Just to make sure I understood you correctly:
Earlier I asked: “But if we accept the fact that changes were made in the body of the Torah itself, doesn’t that undermine the binding force of Jewish law? (After all, the Talmud derives heaps upon heaps of laws from the tiniest stroke of a letter in the Torah.)”
You answered: “Indeed. The assumption is that the entire text is precise, and even if there were additions, they were by a prophet. But mistakes are possible, as in anything else. As long as we do not know that something is a mistake, the assumption is that it is not.”

Did you mean that this indeed does undermine the binding force of Jewish law? Or did you mean that it indeed does not undermine it?
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Rabbi:
That there is undermining here.
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Questioner:
Does this undermining have any practical implication? Or does it simply fall under the category of doubts we have to live with?
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Rabbi:
I don’t think so. These are doubts one has to live with. But there is also something calming about them, since according to this there is no need to panic over difficulties (such as errors in the Bible or contradictions).

In my opinion, there is no need to go that far. Canaan can be the father of the Canaanite nation even without a direct biological connection to the members of the nation (certainly not to all of them). It could be that these were successful leaders who established states, and over the years their name became the name of the nation. There are many examples of this in the world—Simón Bolívar, for example.