As usual, you're right. It's a fascinating study that ancient 'pagans' didn't actually believe in the gods--the subject of the 2005 paper "As Socrates Shows, the Athenians Did Not Believe in Gods"

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27643170

It's been a surprise to me that the Bible's narratives were also likely not believed. The Temple Scroll of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, doesn't have a Moses in the Exodus story, or giants in Caanan.

This doesn't mean the stories were not seen as very important. But they weren't "real."