Ancient Ascension Narratives and their Chariots of Fire

As I was reading a summary of the Mahabharata today, I was struck by a story from the Maha-parasthanika-parvan, which tells of Yudhishthira, a king of the Pandavas, whose last days are very similar to the prophet Elijah. As he sets out for the Himalayas, he is greeted by a charioteer of God. He is given the opportunity to enter the chariot and leave for the celestial sphere; however, because he has drawn companionship with a dog who has followed him, he refuses. This is supposed to demonstrate his unfathomable virtue.

The use of chariots was interesting, because  like Apollo who draws the sun across the sky in his chariot, as the sun god, chariots seem to be the preferred method of motion by the gods of old. Elijah as we know from the Bible is taken up in a chariot as his understudy Elisha watches.

“And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more.” (2 Kings 2:11-12.)

Elisha had a thing for chariots. So too, in 2 Kings 6:17 he has a vision in which the chariots of the Lord appears in flames of fire to defeat the enemies of YHWH.

So here's a few questions:

Can we blame Constantine for mistaken Christ and his YHWH for the sun god?

Can we blame ancient astronaut theorists for assuming the chariots to be UFOs?

Can we blame social anthropologists for assuming the chariots imagery for the gods because of their familiarity and use within those societies?

Perhaps the only thing we can blame is our ignorance when we fail to see these connections that span Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Persian, and Indian cultures to name a few.