The hermeneutics of fear.

Here are some potentially uncomfortable questions about the Bible:

--Is it possible that 40 days is an expression of long time rather than an actual day count? (Exodus 24:18) (Mark 1:13)
--Did the Israelites leaving Egypt feel a tickle from the feathers when God carried them on eagle’s wings? (Exodus 19:4)
--And will those who wait upon the Lord need to buy new clothes with holes to accommodate their new eagle wings? (Isaiah 40:31)
--If I look at a sexy woman, can I wait until I get home to gouge out my eye, or do I have to do it immediately? (Matthew 5:29)
--Can the story of the woman caught in adultery retain its value even though it isn’t in the earliest manuscripts? (John 7:53-8:11)
--Does everyone who wants to be a Christian have to sell all his possessions first? (Luke 14:33)
--Is it possible Job was a play rather than a historically accurate biography?
--Under what circumstances, exactly, would a girl consider throwing her pearl necklace into a pig sty? (Mattew 7:6)

I know these questions make us Bible conservatives feel very nervous, but consider some easier ones to illustrate the point.
--Have you ever actually seen cats or dogs (let alone both) falling from the clouds?
--Are there actually any looks that kill?
--Would it be a violation of animal cruelty laws to eat a horse in extreme hunger?
--Is Narnia less meaningful just because it’s only a story some professor of literature invented?

See, the Library of God we call The Holy Bible is a collection spanning dozens of centuries written by dozens of authors in dozens of literary styles. And although I understand the alluring simplicity of taking it all literally as a way to avoid taking it all liberally, I worry that in so doing we’re actually sometimes ruining rather than honoring its meaning as the revealed, inerrant, and inspired Word of God. In short, far from taking the Bible seriously requiring us to take it literally, taking the Bible seriously specifically requires us to not take it literally at least some of the time.