Well, there are far too many loose ends for a start.
The question was 'Why read the Bible literally', we haven't had a good answer yet.
Essentially, what the reasons that we have is:
1. Why do we read it literally, well it is just a 'feeling' that we know what should be taken literally.
2. It is obvious which parts are allegorical, but we haven't had an explanation of what makes this so obvious.
3. We have the appeal to authority, Jesus took it literally (which hasn't even been established yet), thus we shoudl all take it literally.
4. We get appeals to authority to read the Bible literally when these authoritities themselves didn't take the Bible literally.
5. We have had the constant dismissal of very important points from areas such as literary criticism, source criticism, archaeological and historical sources, with nothing more than a hand wave.
To get anywhere near answering the question, at least one of these points, needs ot be adquately answered.
For example, the taking some parts literally and other parts figuratively needs to be explained a lot better than simply saying "it's just a feeling, I can't really put it into words."
I cannot speak for everyone else, but I cannot see any explanation that comes anywhere near satifactory.
We haven't had a good reason for reading the Bible literally.
Brian.
PS, I am going off line in ten minutes, so if this doesnt pass inspection, someone else can feel free to take it forward.
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