I listened to a podcast today about how useless the word "literal" is when it comes to discussions about how to read the Bible. Although I largely agreed with his stance, his explanation ended up being unnecessarily confusing.
I guess I would explain it this way: People don't generally speak or write in a strictly literal way, so we should beware of hyper-literal readings of any text - especially something written thousands of years ago in a distant land.
Here's an illustration any parent or teacher will immediately recognize:
Your kid comes home from school and tells you, "My math teacher yelled at me today for not having my homework done."
Do you A) ask your kid why he didn't have his homework ready to turn in or B) make an angry phone call to the principal demanding the math teacher be fired for verbally abusing your kid?
Because you're not an idiot, it doesn't even cross your mind to make that phone call.
You know your child was simply communicating the teacher was irritated over the missing homework.
Fortunately, nobody will berate you as a bad parent for not taking your kid's words literally.
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