[ambientambien]

As the ending of the sutta depicts what came after the Buddha's death, he could hardly have been the author. I think Richard Gombrich dealt with this in one of his books. A lot of the hyperbolic and mythical elements were written into the sutta to make the Buddha's passing more competitive with the contemporary religious/philosophical movements, that is, to help ensure that the Buddha's dhamma didn't pass out of existence.

Literalism is a trap. It's a lot easier than doing all the research required to make sense of the metaphors and myths. But as nothing is said or written in a vacuum, doing the (con)textual analysis is necessary for accurate understanding of the text.