Consider the story of Sampson and his riddles, his strange behavior and his riddles. To someone studying morality in the law Sampson's great strength is irrelevant and will fade one day, but the law will continue to be all important. What does the story have to do with the Pentateuch and you? That is what matters, and that is what the author is writing it for. It is for you, as if the author were sitting with you and trying to get you to think. They don't know who you are, but they are trying to connect with you. Try to connect back. Ask things like: Do the judges judge fairly? Is the L-RD right or wrong to let Israel slip into this chaos? Should Sampson have been kicked out for doing thus and such?
Try to connect back? Why? Do you see relevance here?
If these were pressing questions that could be answered by considering myths, why these? Why read this book for stories to view as life lessons? There are many other choices. Did Odin judge fairly? Was Tiamat right or wrong when she mated, "with Abzu, the god of the groundwater, to produce younger gods"? Was Cercyon right to challenge "passers-by to a wrestling match, and, when he had beaten them, kill them"? Was the fox wrong to resent the grapes he couldn't reach? Should the little boy have cried wolf given the consequences? Discuss.
Why read this book at all if that's all it's stories are?
You are reading STORIES written by humans with the intention of inspiring fear and awe and humility toward their God. (Toward the god-ideal as they understood it.) You are not reading a history of God. You are only reading a literary depiction of God. One that intends you to be frightened and awed and consternated.
Once again, so why read them? I have no interest in how frightened others want me to be, and frankly, find nothing frightening or even interesting there. A brutal, primitive, warlike people created a god in their own image, that they believed sanctioned their choices because it was as violent as they were. That's what these stories actually tell us - what their authors respected and worried about.
You can choose to interpret the stories however you want. And so can anyone else.
Exactly. So why read them in preference to say song lyrics, which you can also interpret however you want (warning: don't take life lessons from this - it actually means nothing):
Ophelia, she's 'neath the window for her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday she already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic she wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion, her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking into Desolation Row