It’s really that simple.
Just this morning I finished “Old Testament Theology for Christians”. I cannot recommend it highly enough. But he references Mesopotamia a LOT, as well as Levant. And points out the strong similarities with - and differences from - their cultural and religious beliefs and Israel’s.
What about cave paintings? Now, we don’t know how old those really are. But many “experts” seem to think the paintings are more than 10,000 years old.
Some of those paintings are pretty amazing and beautiful. Like, they-could-teach-Picasso-a-few-things-beautiful. (And Picasso did talk about “stealing” vs. copying. Hmmmm .....)
If a picture is worth a 1,000 words I would suggest we need to re-think “writing = civilization”.