If the Bible is metaphorical then perhaps so is the God of the Bible

Are you saying they assume the stories of the Bible are true until proven otherwise?

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That is possible, although I've spoken to Christians who claim to have studied the Bible comprehensively and are still somehow able to differentiate between the metaphor and the literal.

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Comprehensive doesn't mean they read the stories completely as written. I've been to a few "comprehensive" Bible studies. They usually have a doctrinal theme and teach to that theme. Although they say they are looking at what the text "really" says, they tend to jump ship when it clashes with doctrine or tradition.Another issue for some Christians is that religion is a security blanket, but not necessarily for all the same reasons. They will shy away from anything that might cause them to lose that security blanket. Personally, I think some clergy exploit that aspect. Keep them needy.If you've read any of the Bible debates, you will see that when evidence doesn't coincide with doctrine, those championing doctrine will try to find their opponents personal achilles heal. Sometimes they even make one up to try and make their opponent feel guilty, ashamed, etc.Many times they can't see because they don't want to lose what they have, whether it is spiritual security, fellowship, family, etc.If you notice the doctrine of Christianity is already steeped in metaphorical phrases. These phrases are repeated over and over, but many have lost their original meaning and some don't mean a lot anymore.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

Pretty much. Whenever someone questions their belief, they ask for proof that what the Bible says isn't true. If they accept that proof, then they'll either change the meaning of the words to try and warp it to fit the evidence, or they'll grudgingly accept that the line in question is a metaphor.

I appreciate all of the responses, but I mostly agree with them and therefore don't have much to add. I encourage everyone to please keep replying because I value your opinions, but I would like to hear from some Christians as well.

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To those who only take certain parts of the Bible literally, how do you determine where the metaphors end and the facts begin? Maybe God Himself is simply a metaphor for something else like the forces of nature.

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Good question. This is exactly what the YEC "biblical literalists" are afraid of. If they allow metaphor at one point (e.g. the Genesis creation account), then where does it stop, and how would we avoid seeing God as metaphorical?I don't think there is a simple formula to determine this; each account or passage must be taken on its own. But here are some thoughts:
1) "Metaphor" is a literary device; determining metaphor requires study of the literary genre, structure, etc. of the account in question.
2) Study of the history and culture of the writer (and the neighboring cultures that may have influenced him) is important.
3) There should be something in the account itself that suggests it is metaphorical (i.e. in the grammar, the literary aspects, the history, or the culture of the original writers). I.e. identification as metaphor should be primarily motivated by the text itself, NOT primarily by a desire to twist the text to fit better with the scientific or cultural theories of the day. (But it may be that conflict between our interpretation of the text and current theories will cause us to re-examine the text and to see evidence of metaphor where we had previously overlooked it.)
4) The goal of biblical interpretation is to try to determine authorial intent. Did the author intend what he wrote to be literal or to be metaphor? Determining this requires study of the original history, culture, grammar, and literary aspects. (It should be clear to anyone that the biblical authors did not view God as metaphor, but as a living being.)Edited by kbertsche, : added point 4

The right question is this one:How do Christians understand the truth of Scripure?Jesus answered this question in John 14 & 16,15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
16 "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.13 "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
14 "He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.
15 "All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.

That would be a remarkable thing since John was written years after the fact. The real statement should read, according to John 14 & 16, Jesus...

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Yes, I'm interested in authorial intent. How do Christians determine that the authors intended the Genesis creation account to be metaphorical, but the story of the resurrection was intended to be literal?

If you want to ask a different question and answer it in your own thread, please do so, but that's NOT the question I'm asking in this thread, so please do not clutter this thread with off topic posts.

I answered your question with my question. Your question "How do Christians decide which parts of the Bible are true?" is like asking "When did you stop beating your wife?"All parts of the Bible present God's truth, but it requires the Holy Spirit to take God's word and disclose it to you, especially the words of Jesus.

I meant: How do Christians decide which parts of the Bible are literally true and which parts are meant to be metaphorical?

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Yes, I'm interested in authorial intent. How do Christians determine that the authors intended the Genesis creation account to be metaphorical, but the story of the resurrection was intended to be literal?

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This field of study is called "hermeneutics" (i.e. biblical interpretation). Proper interpretation requires historical, grammatical, and cultural study of the passage in question. The best way to understand hermeneutics is to read a good hermeneutics text or take a course in hermeneutics. I recommend the text "Protestant Biblical Interpretation" by Bernard Ramm.Descriptions of the appearances of Christ after His resurrection seem to indicate a real, literal resurrection. Paul says that without the resurrection our faith is in vain.The Genesis creation account, on the other hand, is highly structured, ordered, and repetitive. This suggests that it may be a literary rather than historical sequence and arrangement. There is a large amount of symbolism in the account itself, suggesting that the author may not intend it to be literal. There is a strong similarity between the apparent cosmogony of the account and that of the neighboring cultures, suggesting that the prevailing cosmogony may have been borrowed as a vehicle to teach theological truth.

In other words it is entirely subjective. Why? But I do like that you use the caveat, "seem". Because Paul says this, the resurrection must be true?It is still picking and choosing. There is no real world evidence for the vast majority of the bible, and no extra biblical, contemporary evidence for anything to do with Jesus.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

The basic rule in deciding whether or not something in the Bible is a metaphor is simply this:Unless a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that "ordinarily designates one thing" is used to designate another, the words or phrases of the Bible are to be taken as being literally true.Example - "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27).In the verse just before this, Jesus said, "But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep."Therefore, the "sheep" Jesus is referring to are those who hear Jesus' voice and follow Him.

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In other words it is entirely subjective.

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Absolutely not. My explanation that "proper interpretation requires historical, grammatical, and cultural study of the passage in question" implies the opposite. Hermeneutics has a scholarly, objective basis.