If you want to read some scholarly works about the origin of our traditions,
try some of Joseph Campbell's books listed below. Here is a dedicated
professional, now world renowned, who spent his life gathering *evidence*
that shows most of our traditions come out of myth.
"Joseph Campbell is perhaps the world's foremost scholar of mythology. Among
his many books are The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Masks Of God, Myths
To Live By, and his current multi-volume Historical Atlas Of World
Mythology. Interviewer Tom Collins is a Los Angeles based writer and editor
whose works include Steven Spielberg, Creator of E.T. (Dillon Press, 1983)."