Question to theists: When to take the bible literally?

[Angrboda]

When your culture has been steeping in its influence for two millennia, it's hardly surprising that it's going to ring some bells.

Yes, that is true. You have to know the language to interpret the message. I also get a lot from the Lotus Sutra and Lao Tzu but and less familiar with those sacred traditions. English poetry is also evocative.

The inner experience of life may indeed be embodied by quantifiable material processes (or not) but that says next to nothing about the content and significance of those processes. And it is true that there is as much risk of reading something into a text as discovering authorial intent. That challenge is part of the joy of reading sacred literature, not a reason to dismiss it.