How do you decide which Bible stories are literal and which are metaphor?

Answer 1

Study the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses. They will help you understand the Bible

Answer 2

They are all literal.
Never question the Holy Bible.

Answer 3

Any metaphor or parable that you find in the Bible is later fully explained. So take the Bible literally as truth.

Answer 4

If it has been confirmed by history, geography, archeology etc, it's literal
if it has been proven wrong by sciences (biology, genetics, astronomy, astrophysics, anthropology, geology, paleontology, etc.) it's metaphor

Answer 5

The ones that are true are literal.

Answer 6

You don't because that is why we have a CHURCH.

Answer 7

I take the Bible as literally as possible, keeping in mind, for example, that Genesis 1 was written from the point of view of a scientifically illiterate observer on the surface of the planet.

Answer 8

That's easy... All Biblical stories are bullshit.
Not literal and not metaphorical...

Today's religions, as a for profit business, still perpetuate this nonsense.
Our culture gives them a free pass to sell bullshit...
There ought to be a law...

Forgive my angry atheism...

Answer 9

For some religious leaders and their believers ...not a difference if those are literal or metaphor they will choose and decide with their own views and values and their agendas...what they will follow regardless if they are literal or metaphor....

Answer 10

Exegesis (/ˌɛksəˈdʒiːsɪs/; from the Greek ἐξήγησις from ἐξηγεῖσθαι, "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, particularly a religious text

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exegesis