[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Fake Messiah]

To touch on something else that has been brought up as though it is veritable gospel:

You cannot know what the writers had in mind or meant when they wrote what they did.

Ever heard of interpretative understanding? It is done all the time in school, where you read a poem or short story or book and then exercise your mind by attempting to think what the author could have meant by that blue curtain billowing from the breeze of the open window.

By placing myself in the mind of the writer by reading his works, I can absolutely understand what he meant when he wrote what he did. In fact, sometimes new interpretive meanings are derived from such exercises. Heck, even new religious schisms are born from branching away from what is considered outdated interpretations.

Exactly. That's how it is with fiction and therefore Bible as well, and not like Plato's "Republic". Imagine if let's say if United States Constitution was written in poetry and metaphors and stories, then you would have wars waging for what each of the amendments really means. But it is not. It was written in straight forward crystal language that even when translated doesn't lose it's meaning.