The Sacrifice of the son of Abraham - Old Testament
Religious story: God order Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to test his faith and obedience.
Parallel reality: Human sacrifices were a common practice in the ancient civilisations. Human sacrifices were part of a ritual of praising deities, to prevent natural disasters, to ask for rain for the harvests, others.
"In early Mesopotamian society, it was considered an high honour to be sacrificed and the afterlife was not something to be feared."
Or maybe the son did something very disappointing and the father wanted to kill him but regretted. In that time, there weren't many moral conducts.
Parallel reality: A natural disaster happened that coloured the water in red. The drought was already affecting Egypt and because of that the water level of the Nile river was very low. So allowed a red toxic red algae to be abundant and to suck the oxygen of the water, killing the fish, plants and forcing the frogs to leave the water and dying in land.Without predator - the frogs to eat the insects, and lots of dead frogs decomposing in land, the lice and flies overproduced, spread to people and infected the livestock that without proper water do drink get sick.
The boils - a skin irritation in humans - were caused by the contacted with the algae in the water and the insects.
Scientists found volcanic residue in Egypt at that time, that explains the hail, the locusts and the darkness.
In Egypt was tradition of the first-born son to be the first one to eat and to have more quantity of food, so they died from eating contaminated cereals by the insects.
Religious story: After 40 years walking, Moses found the promised land for the slaves. But Moses was not allowed to enter as a punishment of God for some episodes of disobedience. Dying in the place he saw the promised land.
Parallel reality: after walking decades, Moses was very very old and dying so before he died he pointed somewhere he saw, as the promised land. The slaves took the land, killing the people that were living there.
The Virgin Mary - New Testament
Parallel reality: Mary got pregnant from Joseph before marriage, what was condemned at that time. So the Church created the beautiful story of the miracle of the virgin Mary for Jesus and his family to be a proper role model to follow . to mirror the role model they wanted for the church and the people to follow
The Last Supper - New Testament
Religious story: During the last supper, Jesus told Judas, one of his disciples, that he was going to betray him in that night. That happened. He couldn't live with that and hanged himself.
Parallel reality: During the last supper, Jesus told Judas, one of his disciples, that he was going to betray him in that night. Judah followed Jesus orders and did it. he couldn't live with that and hanged himself. Jesus wanted to be captured.