The quote from Ajahn Sumedho may be useful for this topic:
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one thing truly fascinating and mind boggling is the phenomenon of human brain with its ability to conceive entire world systems, realities, mythologies, products of conceptual proliferation
Is it really that important what’s literally true? Is anything really literally true? Words are just words. They point to something but can that something be exactly the same for you and me?
Nowadays I read the suttas more like I read a map. A map has all kinds of stuff on it that you can’t see in real life. Does that mean that the map is wrong?
The function of myth in human life & society is the way to approach these topics, I think; those who take it only literally & those who consider them only historical artifacts are probably missing out on a potential source of inspiration, whether or not one side or the other (or neither?) has got it right.
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i don’t know, i’m inspired by stories of historical flesh-and-bone personalities, because to them i can relate as my congeners in human race
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I, too, prefer historical reality. But, this is a unique point of view for humanity; for tens of thousands of years, it was myth, and human minds were primarily in just such an orientation in Iron Age India. Historical context is why I say this, but that tool then gets set down, and I consider the context of those who considered these words worth memorizing.
Surely, many thought of them as literal truth; but, as we see with annihilationist wanderers in India, others of that ilk in Greece & elsewhere, this wasn’t ever the sole point of view. So, many would not have thought ‘truth’ when hearing them.
This is fine, as far as it goes. My point is that holding firm to one or another end of that dichotomy is short-sighted & isolating, in my experience. I really can’t get on board with the world-view in play, but I can set down a firm conviction in materialism et al, and while still giving historical points of view a priority, have a sympathy for these reciters & their values (especially as there came to be a first generation of laity-cum-monastics who’d never met the Buddha, but had met the stories of their culture).
tl;dr It’s complicated.
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It is. If the Buddha literally went to the Tavatimsa Heaven to preach the Abhidhamma, we should all be studying Patthana. If the story of Buddha’s birth is true, the Buddha is not just a human who broke thwough the ignorance to find the true path, he is a higher being, something exceptional from the moment of his birth, not the moment of His Enlightenment. There is only a tiny step between this position and the ideal of the Boddhisattva as it is in Mahayana, which is what is discussed in Ven. Analayo’s book.
I should point out it is very nuanced. If we talk about deities approaching the Buddha, as in the opening Suttas of the Samyutta Nikaya, it doesn’t really matter and you can use the stories of the Sakka or Jatakas as inspirational tales as much as you want. But if we talk about the Buddha’s birth or his travel to the Tavatimsa heaven, or him foretelling a great future to Pataliputra, these unfactual stories have far-reaching doctrinal, practical and political implications, and this is why we should be very well aware of them not being the literal truth.
My point is that you can and should use these stories as source of your inspiration while being absolutely sure they are not historical. You cannot reject a historical fact, you can only accept it: ‘If the Buddha’s birth was such and such, the he was an exceptional being right from the moment of his birth’, and a whole devotional trend starts that culminates in the more simple Pure Land teachings. A counterfactual story can be critically examined and therefore rejected as a source of inspiration.
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I agree. An easy example to mention is the growing omniscience ahistorically attributed to the Buddha.
In Xianity, we can mention how Jesus wasn’t born in December, and a bunch of other things like that. This is common with religious texts, and ancient texts in general. Accurate until they run out of information, whereupon ‘here there be dragons & myths & other symbols’.
Again, I agree; and yes, rejecting some stories even if some find them inspirational may need to happen, because some people are inspired by less-than-wholesome things, and being inspired by lies is of course no good.
The abhidhamma being preached in heaven is an obvious historical effort at generating an imprimatur, but how did the story come about that this was indeed preached in heaven? Did a group of monks just make this up as a piece of narrative fiction? Was it a meditation vision? Is it merely symbolic of importance, only later coming to have literal connotations?
Well, it seems that the historical reality we must accept is, in fact, hidden from us.
We can suspect, and be virtually certain, that Iron Age Indian cosmology does not have a special access to the truths of the universe, and at the same time recognize that the people of 2500 years ago did what they could to explain to themselves what they needed to have explained, as we do today.
For example, some people thought rebirth needed to be mapped out, and this seems to have been a way to encapsulate other religious as well as lay understandings of the cosmos, providing a place for merit and donations to find fruition in the narratives given to lay supporters.
Furthermore, there were centuries of inter-religious competition for lay resources, and this must certainly have had strong, ongoing effects on stories, myths, etc. This was suitable, once upon a time. But, the universe isn’t really of any importance in the Dhamma; anicca is the impermanence of experience, not objective-stuff-impermanence.
Now, I agree that this effort has e.g. no modern Western application. Instead, the approach I anticipate succeeding needs to be a militant agnosticism in the face of historical gaps, not a commitment to cultural metaphysics & not to brute materialism.
As Analayo wrote, what can be discerned is a “continuity of certain developments”, and this both demonstrates how the religion survived, and that it did not begin with those stories. It also didn’t begin with psychological stories, strict historical stories, or anything like it. Ours is only a modern approach; the texts we have were carried by people with other approaches.
“This is true, all else is worthless” is to be guarded against, that’s all.
Finally: here is Sujato’s On the interpretation of Buddhist myth, which applies here.
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And not just a source of inspiration, but also a source telling us how many early Buddhists actually viewed the Buddha. If most of the community was against this sort of view, then it would not have been adopted and preserved without modification. Yet we see that in both the MN and MA, we have basically the same text, without amendments.
The modern idea that the Buddha was just a man is probably the bigger myth, and less supported by the EBT’s. The supernormal is fairly normal within the EBT’s, and we shouldn’t be embarrassed by this or pretend it doesn’t exist.
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After this discussion, I came to have a friendlier attitude towards the supernatural in the EBTs. But we also shouldn’t see the supernatural where there is none. Ven. Analayo and his comparative analysis of MN 123 and the corresponding Chinese Agama suttas shows that quite a lot of important (and ‘harder to digest’) Pali material is absent in the Chinese version. Working out what is likelier to be the ‘original contents’ of a Sutta and what was accrued later, just as in any other religious tradition make sense, don’t they? 
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“I have learned this in the presence of the Buddha: ‘As soon as he’s born, the being intent on awakening stands firm with his own feet on the ground. Facing north, he takes seven strides with a white parasol held above him, surveys all quarters, and makes this dramatic proclamation: “I am the foremost in the world! I am the eldest in the world! I am the first in the world! This is my last rebirth. Now there are no more future lives.”’ This too I remember as an incredible quality of the Buddha.”(MN123)
“「我聞世尊初生之時，即行七步，不恐不怖，亦不畏懼，觀察諸方，若世尊初生之時，即行七步，不恐不怖，亦不畏懼，觀察諸方者，我受持是世尊未曾有法。” (MA32)
The Chinese version (MA32) does not say “I am the foremost in the world! I am the eldest in the world! I am the first in the world! This is my last rebirth.”
Do any other Chinese agama texts indicate the similar words/ideas as in MN123?
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I did a quick StackOverflow cut-and-paste job of a find command, and ran it in a directory containing the T section of the CBETA Chinese Tripitaka (which has all the Agamas).
~/Documents/cbeta_pdf_2_2021q2/T$ find . -name '*.pdf' -exec sh -c 'pdftotext "{}" - | grep --with-filename --label="{}" --color "我聞世尊初生之時"' \;
./T0026.pdf:「我聞世尊初生之時，有四天子手執極細衣，住於母前，令母歡
./T0026.pdf:「我聞世尊初生之時，即行七步，不恐不怖，亦不畏懼，觀察諸
./T0026.pdf:「我聞世尊初生之時，則於母前而生大池，其水滿岸，令母於此得
./T0026.pdf:「我聞世尊初生之時，上虛空中雨水注下，一冷一暖，灌世尊身，
./T0026.pdf:「我聞世尊初生之時，諸天於上鼓天妓樂，天青蓮華、紅蓮華、赤
Since searching for 我聞世尊初生之時 didn’t find many entries, I searched using a different phrase (即行七步):
~/Documents/cbeta_pdf_2_2021q2/T$ find . -name '*.pdf' -exec sh -c 'pdftotext "{}" - | grep --with-filename --label="{}" --color "即行七步"' \;
./T1547.pdf:林毘園生，即行七步，二龍浴身，二十九出家，三十五得道。六年
./T1538.pdf:又問：何因菩薩初生即行七步？答：菩薩大士於長時中，正念出離
./T2036.pdf:入淨妙口。後年四月八日剖右腋而生。墮地即行七步。於是佛道興
./T1545.pdf:說菩薩初生即行七步。或有生名顯分位五蘊者。如說有緣生。或有
./T1545.pdf:界。入於母胎十月滿已從母胎出。即行七步自稱獨尊。出家苦行詣
./T0375.pdf:「何等名為未曾有經？如彼菩薩初出生時，無人扶持即行七步，放
./T1824.pdf:三苦。後明八苦。言一苦者佛初生墮地即行七步。一手指天一手指
./T0202.pdf:其生之日，天降瑞應三十有二，萬神侍衛，即行七步，舉手而言：
./T1723.pdf:後酬請者，如經中說，菩薩初生即行七步，放大光明遍照十方，四
./T0190.pdf:即立於地，無人扶持即行七步，足所履處皆生蓮華，一切四方，正
./T0310.pdf:「以何緣故，菩薩生時即行七步，非六非八？善男子！必定菩薩有
./T0310.pdf:益餘眾生者，菩薩行於六步；若以八步益餘眾生者，即行七步。是
./T1861.pdf:薩初生即行七步。放大光明遍照十方。獼猴獻蜜。白項狗聽法。魔
./T1735.pdf:達磨。亦云希法一德業殊異故。如佛。初生即行七步。斯經不起而
./T0579.pdf:天香，無有臭穢；二十九者、菩薩生時即行七步；三十者、虛空白
./T1341.pdf:扶持。即行七步至第七步猶如師子。觀察諸方作如是言。我於世間
./T0320.pdf:遍吼、極遍吼，光照天地，無與等者，即行七步不假扶掖。是時空
./T0320.pdf:禮，復作是言：「世尊初生無人扶侍，即行七步，觀視十方：『我
./T1929.pdf:胎生墮於地。即行七步。口自發言。天上天下唯我為尊。當初生
./T1581.pdf:光明充滿世界，正知入胎、住胎、出胎。生墮地時，即行七步舉手
./T2040.pdf:三十有二萬神侍衛。即行七步舉手而言。天上天下唯我為尊。身黃
./T0026.pdf:「我聞世尊初生之時，即行七步，不恐不怖，亦不畏懼，觀察諸
./T0026.pdf:方，若世尊初生之時，即行七步，不恐不怖，亦不畏懼，觀察諸方
./T2121.pdf:華。從右脇生。身長丈六。即行七步。寶華承足。舉手住而言。天
./T1767.pdf:母。十方各行七步者。河西云象王初生即行七步。如來示同象王行
./T0316.pdf:菩薩從兜率天沒、來生人間降神母胎，菩薩生已即行七步，所有菩
./T0316.pdf:如大龍，初生履地即行七步，發菩提場勝果報故。一心清淨肅恭住
./T0185.pdf:即行七步，舉右手住而言：『天上天下，唯我為尊。三界皆苦，何
./T1699.pdf:神侍衛即行七步。唱言天上天下唯我為尊。須達聞說如是等好事歡
./T1763.pdf:即行七步。知是象王。菩薩始生。示自在王相也。唱如是言者。上
./T2102.pdf:墮地。即行七步舉手旨天曰。天上天下唯我為尊。三界皆苦何可樂
The output doesn’t contain the sutra number, just the file, which is a PDF from the CBETA . This would just be a starting point for answering your question. I haven’t looked at any of those files, just posted the output.
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Zen actually has a story about this sutra:
"A monk ask Yunmen: The Buddha when he was born, raised one finger pointed to the sky, one pointed to the earth, walked seven steps, saying: “I am the foremost in the world! I am the eldest in the world! I am the first in the world!”
Yunmen said: If at that moment I saw something like that, I’d beat it dead with a stick and feed the dogs, so there’d be peace to the world."
This also serves as koan, could you solve it? 
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Many thanks.
According to your findings, the similar words/ideas (i.e. “I am the foremost in the world! I am the eldest in the world! I am the first in the world! This is my last rebirth”) shown in MN123 are not found in other Agama texts (including EA). This may suggest only that the Buddha walked 7 steps immediately after birth is shared in common in Nikaya and Agama.
My monastery read this sutta together recently. Here’s my personal opinion on it.
Did anyone had a time machine, gone back and saw that this sutta is not literally true?
Can anyone point out exactly which laws of nature did the Bodhisatta violate when all these miracles occur?
Why is it that it’s more ok to believe in rebirth, kamma, devas (gods), brahmas (beyond gods), and that they have supernormal powers, and not believe in special miracles for the Buddha?
I suspect the notion of miracles for the western mind is that they got wary of it from Christianity. So many miracle mongers out there who are fakers and so many conflicts between the Christian church and Science.
Here’s what miraculous to me. That we can have a device which fits into our pocket which allows us to call anyone in the world for almost no cost. That we can know the knowledge of humanity at the tips of our fingers, and enjoy instant entertainment better than the kings of old. Given that devas are more powerful and long lived than humans, why should we assume that they don’t have superior science and tech which to us looks like magic? Why shouldn’t we regard the teacher of gods and humans to be even superior in miracles, even if it was just from the past kammas?
We have movies of superheroes fighting villains from outer space, even from another past timeline, aligning themselves with gods like Thor, with characters who can transform into a Hulk, why are these miracles seemed more believable science fiction wise, and not the being who’s psychic powers can be beyond all these superheroes?
I think anyone who has a problem with literal interpretation of this sutta and cannot point out a law of nature which is violated should reflect upon their attitude towards miracles.
Also, the whole universe light up thing is useful as a test. One day, we may meet alien civilizations. If they keep their records of telescopes and history back to Buddha’s time, we can inquire if such light occurs at the moment of conception, birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha, which would have the time gap in between them of 10 months, 35 years, 45 years or around there. That’s a testable thing.
- They didn’t had internet and video capture back then, how could they link the earthquakes and such to the birth of this particular baby?
- Even if they have those, you just have to see the attitudes of people nowadays. Would you listen to some new age guru who claims to have demonstrated supernormal powers? Or you’ll just google up critics who had seen it and given some statements which allows you to remain back in your old world view and be comfortable and ignore this new upstart.
- Would you believe in magic captured on video or hearsay anyway? The Buddha performed the twin miracle live and then got the faith of the live audiences there. Nowadays, some people wouldn’t even gain faith from live performances.
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Unfortunately, I don’t think it can be solved. There will always be newborn babies prancing around in robes trying to teach everyone 
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Reminds me of Ajahn Chah. Just let go. Let go of the debate. Let go of the shock at what Yunmen said. Let go of everything.
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Or they both happened and did not happen.
Or they neither happened nor did not happen.
…Brahmins
Another funny sutta at the end of MN (128?) where Buddha is giving a simile for suffering in the animal realm and mentions Brahmins while describing dung eating animals seeking their next meal.
Dont get me started on the Jains.
It’s a joke. At least I had a big belly laugh when I first read it.
Stuck with the vedic stories - allegorical or not - the venerable sirs came up with a skit worthy of Abbott and Costello.
Ananda:
"He’s gold, he flys, he slices, dices, peels, and cleans up afterward… he is the bestest bestest bestest (etc. ad nauseum).
Goutama:
“Rightly said friend, but also remember…
I’m a pretty good mediator.”
Bottom line of the teaching… let go the fluff and execute on the basics.
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