The trinity

[Tobie]

How do you determine which passage merits a "face value" reading? Who are you, in absence of instruction from the bible's authors, to say that parts are metaphorical?

So you cannot figure out if your math text books are poetry or not?

Maths books are not fiction, and are up to date, so yes I can. There's nothing beyond the "this bit sounds stupid, too horrible or too out of date to be true" that makes you decide, but it may have been intended as factual when it was written. Maths textbooks do not have the same content, intent or audience as the bible.