It is a significant part of your culture and heritage, you should actually read it at least once. It does not need to be the archaic original version, many if not all have meticulously modernized revisions that retain all of the meaning while making it easier to read for modern audiences.
Definitely an interesting discussion. And probably even more fruitful to try and go through the most prominent candidates and reasons why they could be the official one, than just half-heartedly going through the one you have been told to be the big one.
Even if your country has a designated national epic, you should see if there are other ones that could have been and what they tell about the values of your culture.