How can you take one part of the bible literally, but not all?

Some people interpret the bible to fit into what they want to believe or to justify their behavior.

Ask yourself as you are reading, who is talking? who are they talking to? what are they talking about? have the scriptures before it stated that it is being said in illustrations or parables? can you take the rest of the scripture literally also? does there seem to be a contradiction between that scripture and others that you have already read? The entire Bible is inspired by God and it has been maintained with truth since it was compiled. God is the only one who can interpret the Bible accurately so you must look at it as a whole and not just single scriptures. God never changes. His purposes are the same today as they were when he first created man. He does not act contrary to himself.

You take it as it was written to be.

If you want to take it all literally, I'm in trouble with phrases such as "the trees of the field shall clap their hands" (Isaiah 55:12)

History as history, poetry as poetry, sermons and letters as such as they are, and myth as myth. Possibly other categories too.

But this shows where more than divide of interpretation opens up. Is "myth" a legitimate category for a believing Christian and, if so, which parts of the bible does it apply to?

Does Satan really pop up to heaven to have conversations with God? (Job ch 1) Or is that the opening of a mythic story that tells truths about suffering, injustice and attitudes to these?

"Literally" is a vastly oversimplifying answer to the question of how the biblical text should be understood.

The Good Lord said Woe to the Scribes. They made the

copies of the Bible for others to read in those days.

The Bible is full of symbology. And it's hard to know what

the symbols really mean. Which cause a lot of

confusion. Ezekiel desrcibed the 4 beasts as all having 4 faces, one like a "bull". John described them as all having

one face and one was a "calf". So we see things can

get confused.

You cant take only part of the Bible literally as it wont make any sense. Its like only accepting 50% of the truth instead of the whole truth which is 100%.

Some parts, (think Revelations) were written in highly figurative and symbolic language to other Christians who were suffering hardships at the time. It does have some modern applications, i.e. remaining faithful until death, not adding to or taking away from the word, etc.

I've noticed that, and I have no answer for you.

"It's all true, literally true, but this particular passage one has to understand as being not literal, but allegorical."

~shrug~ I don't concern myself much over it, though, as I'm not a Christian, and I have better things to do with my time - like trying to walk MY spiritual path.

The only times I concern myself with this kind of thing is when Christians seem to choose either literal or figurative in order to justify slamming people of other religions - in other words, when they choose one way of reading their scripture over another in order to make others wrong, in order to adopt the least charitiable and most condemnatory reading of it. And even THAT only concerns me when it's used to badmouth others.

The only parts not to be taken literally are the parables, but their meaning is to be taken literally.

And how, taking all the bible literally, can you not trivially reject the whole thing when you find demonstrable falsehoods?

Here's what you do. Go to the library or bookstore and go through the Non-Fiction section, and you find me a book that has zero metaphors or similes.

Good luck