I'm familiar enough with the kind of text-mangling that transits a document from history, to legend, to myth. There's even an episode of Doctor Who in which a similar scenario is played out, with his assistant, tarzan-girl Leela, where he talks about how the story gets mangled into a seeming fiction, or at best, a pure abstraction as in "philosophical". That one had a particularly good word for it, if I remember correctly, an expression that I think would be useful for anyone wanting to dig at the reality behind these ancient texts.

I don't believe that any of these texts were originally as primitive and fairy-tale like in their original text, just that the scribes and translators had variously degraded concept maps to carry the narrative into their own language.

I mean, how would you explain the operation of a rocket or gun to someone who barely understands the use of blades?