Biblical Literalism: Can it be true yet symbolic?

Yes, it can.
I often see references to "The adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and to "Alice in Wonderland", because of the great truths they contain. Although both are fictions, I don't recall hearing anybody claim that either book is false.I don't see any reason that the Bible could not equally contain great truths, even though parts are allegorical.

The OP started with a quote, that began: I take that as indicating that the source was anonymous. It is my intention, in this post, to question that opening quote. It begins: To me, this seems incorrect. Surely there is some literalism, but it does not seem pervasive. Literalism is perhaps most pronounced in the creationist literalism of some fundamentalist religious groups. But that kind of literalism appears to be a relatively modern invention.There is some literalism elsewhere, judicial literalism being one example. But even there, I don't see a lot of it. Courts mainly seem to emphasize intentions of the law makers over a literalist rendering of the wording of the statutes. There is some literalism in bureaucracies, but that was always so. It is of the nature of bureaucracy. Yet even there, I do not find it a pronounced problem. This statement surprises me, for it is far from my experience. By its nature, mathematics is pedantic with respect to formal expression. But most mathematicians are informal and far from pedantic in non-mathematical ordinary life. Scientists overall, are mostly pragmatic, and that makes them far from pedantic. They are fussy about methodology, not about linguistic expression. To be sure, they are careful when discussing methodology, and perhaps that can seem pedantic. But I don't see any carry over to pedantry in their ordinary lives. Now there's a switch. After attributing the problem to science, the anonymous author seems to say that it is to be found mainly in the humanities.I don't spend a lot of time in the humanities classroom, so it is hard to comment on this. I do sometimes wonder if the humanities are trying too hard to emulate the rigorous standards of the sciences, when they attempt to evaluate scholarly work in their own fields. But I have never thought the problem serious enough to be considered pervasive. It has always been so. But why not say it as "Students have difficulty in thinking, feeling and expressing themselves." What does that word "symbolically" add? These are, after all, students. They are still learning. We should not expect them to be professionals at self-expression. That might be our aim for them by the time they graduate, but it is not our expectation of them as students.

The thread title asked "Can it be true yet symbolic?" I don't see the word "literal". Maybe that was intended. We need Phat to explain the original intent

This is not realistic.If the muscles were strong enough, the exerted force would break the cow's bones.If the bones were strong enough, the acceleration would raise the cow to such a high velocity that it would burn up in the atmosphere on the way up.If the cow hide could somehow resist burning up, the velocity attained would be very near escape velocity from the earth, and it is likely that it never would come down again. So it wouldn't really be jumping over the moon.However, I do agree with you on one point. This isn't a logic issue, it is a physical issue. What crashfrog should be arguing, is that it is physically impossible, rather than that it is logically impossible.By the way, this digression is way off-topic for the thread. I now return you to your regularly scheduled topic.