Torah Myth as Allegory

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Which do you imagine are 'critical stories' in the Torah texts?

As you are well aware, JC, one of the Jewish principles of Biblical interpretation is that the farther back in time the narrative covers, the less 'historical' and the more allegorical the account is seen as being. JewOne

I am an atheist.  I see nothing in any fable religious or secular that is anything but allegorical or occasionally ironic.  Allegory must teach something of value that bears some relationship to the details of the story or it would not persist as a part of the lore of at least a tribe or subset of humanity.  It is not necessary to believe that the wolf in Little Red Riding hood was anything but allegorical to understand that young women should be wary of strangers.  Even strange women.  Female wolves are as predatory as the males. 

The critical stories in the Torah texts are the ones everybody remembers. Most were written by the Yahwist as hesh was by far the best storyteller in the Torah, and herm stories translate well as they deal with universal human issues in any language.  Whether they are translated by a Jew, an unknown Aramaic scholar, or various Roman and Christian translators.  They all say about the same thing.  Believe in and do what God tells you to do or else.  We can argue about the details of "what else" other than the fact that it isn't good.

Some of the later stories incorporate the mediators for God as authoritative interpreters of the B_b drone of "Believe in and do what God tells you to do or else."