It's a matter of perspective

He [Averback] suggests that the underlying problem for us today is that we require an explanation for the presence of myth or legend in a historical work in the first place. The ancients would have understood this to be normal, whereas we today do not.—Toward a Poetics of Genesis 1-11, page 44

<idle musing>
Indeed! Postmodernism has helped a bit, but we still tend to read everything through a mechanistic materialism viewpoint. Cold logical positivism is our default method. That doesn't leave much room for a more mythopoetic reading of things...
</idle musing>