The OT is a good reverence for ancient history of many civilizations, conflicts, and names of cities and important figures. The Hebrew story is intwined with many much greater civilizations.

you do have a good point if the old testament leads to further historical finds that is all fine and good.

I am not sure how much it can do that at this point however, given how much it has been studied and that region of the world has been studied. I saw documentary a little while back that they dug up in iraq a royal announcement to build a big tower and it is most likely the tower refereed to in the book. So, thats kinda cool.

I do not maintain it is accurate or rules to live by ffs would I be here if I was? What I am asking is it worth looking at for information of those times? I doubt if any historical records are particularly accurate or without bios even about more recent events such as the Alamo or Boston tea party. Imagine if the only record future historians had to go on was Fox news?

As you say, it gives an inside view of some of the big changes. I'm no scholar at all, but it appears the religion started as a pagan one, an agricultural variety, with sacrifices and that was in conflict with the Temple based religion which was more suited to an animal raising agriculture.

The religion appears to change into a national identity, linking a fairly large population into a powerful army, and I guess it is still a cultural unity more than anything else.

It also appears they changed eras from worshipping the calf (Taurus) to the lamb and then a thousand or so years latter to two fishes.

But it's somewhat jumbled up, interspersed with stuff written to encourage someone to fight, and as I say this is nothing more than the impression I got from reading it.

Yes. There is value in ancient literature, but that is not to say that we should believe any of it literally. The baby in the bath is a metaphor... in both cases.

There is no baby there. Of course there is value in reading the Bible as the anthropological document it is. But those other examples listed, folklore, etc., are taken as such; as metaphor and glimpse of perspective on a culture; not as divine rules to live by. The Bible is NOT the only written record of those times. There are other books that "didn't make the cut," or that were later excised from the church's cannon. There are Egyptian records. There are Greek writings. There are likely others as well.