Reddit mentions of Epics of Early Civilization: Myths of the Ancient Near East (Myth and Mankind)

>And presumably you have a least some piece of evidence to back up the idea that the Jews understood the Sumerian creation myth as fiction. Can I see it?

Are you asking me if I personally have evidence of this? No, I don't. My information is second hand from books like this or this. From my understanding all of the cultures in the Middle East retold the myths around them in the context of their own culture. Essentially that these shared myths shaped the elements of their religions from their ceremonies to their ethics.

>Do you think the Romans didn't actually believe in their Gods

you can believe in gods without believing those stories are literal truth. It's not an either/or situation.

>since they were retellings of the Greek myths in the context of the Roman people?

You do realize that the Romans appropriated the religions of the people they conquered? Greece wasn't special in this regard. Also Roman religion was tied to the functions of the Roman government.

>Explain the "function" of a nauseating and detailed genealogy if it is not an actual genealogy.

It establishes the divine right of the Israel kings. It also establishes the origins of the Jewish people through connections with their mythological father.

Personally, I think you're trying too hard. Only for the most deluded fundies, religion does not function as a literal truth. Religion is a lot more than what it says about how the world works. They are often systems of ethics, ceremony, and culture as well and it does a disservice to treat creation myths as the same as a science textbook. It's far more comparable to a parable philosophical text thingermajig.