Earlier quoted context omitted.
My view is quite different. They're just stories that anyone could have told and don't contain any unobtainable wisdom. The people that told those stories simply existed before us. In many ways the stories are inferior to their modern counterparts.
The argument here is not about quality. It is about relevance. Specifically, these old works have largely determined our current culture. If you want to understand the current culture, it pays to have some knowledge of what it was based on.
I know it's about relevance. I'm making the unpopular argument that these ancient works aren't really all that relevant, and definitely aren't profound. Simply because something is old and was the first to do something, doesn't make it important.
We have our own culture now, we spend far too much time worrying about what the dead did with their limited free time.