Dear Proboscis,
About Literal v Figurative, I believe if you read the Bible with no preconceptions, and a little grammatical understanding, you can easily decipher what to take literally and what to take figuratively.
Here are a few guidelines you might want to use when examining scripture.
Guidelines for Interpreting Scripture:
1) Establish the correct frame of reference.
2) Make no conclusions without examining and considering the whole Word of God. {I.E. The Bible}
3) Accept only those conclusions that are consistent with the whole Word of God.
4) Interpret narrative passages in light of the didactic, or instructive, passages and illustrations in light of principles.
5) Take any passage literally unless its context clearly indicates that it should be taken figuratively or symbolically.
6) Accept a symbol definition only if it is defined as such elsewhere in Scripture
7) Recognize that many prophecies are fulfilled more than once.
8) Be prepared to draw more than one message or application from a passage.
9) Be alert to occasional problems in translation from the original languages.
[Taken from copies of transparencies used in a lecture about Biblical Paradoxes by Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe.
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For instance, In Matthew 5: 13 — 16 Jesus is speaking to a crowd of Jews, He says’
13You are like salt for all mankind. But if salt loses its taste, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless; so it is thrown away and people walk on it.
14You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15Noboby lights a lamp to put it under a bowl; instead he pts it on the lamp-stand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and give praise to your Father in Heaven.
(Good News Version)
Now, go threw the steps and see if He (Jesus) was speaking figuratively or literally. And remember just because a passage is literal does not mean that you cannot, take into account different contextual clues. It also does not mean you can only use one definition of a given word.
Take for instance the Creation account it Genesis. Seven days are mentioned.
The definition for Day includes:
1 a) the period of light between sunrise and sunset 2 a) the 24-hour period (mean solar day) that it takes the earth to rotate once on its axis with respect to the sun: the civil or legal day is from midnight to midnight 4 [also pl.] a period or time; era; age [the best writer of her day, in the days of old] {Webster’s New World College Dictionary, third Edition, 1997}
Now, as Americans in our hustle and bustle world, we would tend to jump to the conclusion that when this passage speaks of Day it means twenty-four hours, right? I, myself, took this stance for many years; until someone challenged my belief, and I took a closer look at the text.
I then noticed two things. First, verse two {of Genesis chapter one} states that God was, as the Amplified Bible puts it, moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters. So the point of view was the face of the Earth {which at that time was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep.}.
Second, I noticed that there is no Morning and Evening for the seventh day; and no indications from the text {other than that} that the seventh day should be any different from the first. After I understood that day could encompass eras and ages I understood that there was really no reason to take the text as 24-hour days. It is still a literal interpretation since the word Day can be used to mean an era, or age.
So, taking those two things into account I was able to understand I could take out the word day from the text and put in its place, for instance, era. Thus verse five could be, just as correctly, interpreted, literally, as, And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one era. {AB modified}
O’ and for those who say OK, but how about the Evening and Morning? according to the Webster’s New World College Dictionary, third Edition, 1997 each can be described respectively: Evening: 3the last period, as of life, a career, ect., Morning: 2the first or early part [the morning of life]
Please do not get me wrong, there are thing about the Bible that I do not understand, and things that cannot be tested with the tools we have at our disposal today. On the other hand there are many testable this written in the pages of the Bible. If you test those, and find no error, then it goes a long way to helping you accept the un-testable things, Doesn’t it?
John3: 16, 17
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