Originally Posted by clickwir
I believe we are smarter now than we used to be. Imagine if people were given this book, oh say 2000 years ago. It would be incredably easy for them to accept it as fact and give no idea to it being at all fiction. It's something so far beyond their comprehension, seemingly given to them by someone of a parental figure, they accept it as fact and know no better. Who knows, they might take it as such a fact that they might even start a religion out of it. Then teach it to their kids, who of course don't know any better and accept it as fact, this goes on for generations... oh ... wait... that's very likely what really happened.
You make a great point as 2,000 years ago metanarratives were much more prevalent than they are now. As we (people) have evolved, many of us have realized that these metanarratives are not absolutes. We can take in the diversity in the world and create our own localized narratives that are custom tailored to our experiences.
Religion itself is nothing more than a story that may or may not have been based on real people. Hell, most of history is just a story that is loosely based on real events. Over time, history gets degraded and the better "story" is what usually gets printed.