I've read the Bible, at least most of it. It sure does seem to me that pretty much all of it is written literally, but Christians pick and choose what they like, and the parts they don't, they declare to be metaphors.
You can't arbitrarily declare something in the Bible metaphor without having biblical justification for doing so. If you do then you can be accused of twisting scriptures and be proven to be twisting scripture.
Was the story of Adam and Eve a metaphor? What about Abraham and Isaac? If that was a metaphor (or allegory),
There is no biblical justification for treating or understanding it that way.
what the hell were we supposed to learn from it? How about the Exodus story?
Both were understood by the prophets Jesus and his Apostles as literal historical events. Although that doesn't prevent us from learning valuable lessons from those events such as the value of faith and the inadvisability of disobedience.
The only obvious metaphor I can think of is at the last supper when Jesus told his disciples that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood.
If that's the only symbol that you remember Jesus using then you need not just to read but to study the Gospels. In the case of parables as the parable of the wheat and weeds, Jesus used symbols followed immediately by the interpretation. Wheat are the true worshippers of God while the weeds are the false. The sower of these is Satan and the gatherers are angels while the harvest is the end of the world.
He uses a house with a weak foundation as a symbol of a person with weak faith. He speaks of Israel as a tree that is to be cut down. Uses fruits symbols for behavior. Light as a symbol of his goodness, bread as the word of God, darkness as evil, ravens as agents of Satan, cornerstone as an organizational foundation, pigs as unworthy people, pearls as precious spiritual truths, white garments as moral purity, finger as the power of God, sleep as death, heart as the seat of motivation, wolves as enemies of God and his people, flock as church, sheep as teachable persons, shepherd as spiritual teacher, road as a way of life, ad infinitum
Proverbs and Psalms are ripe with symbolic language as well.
The funny thing is, this obvious metaphor is actually taken literally by vast numbers of Christians!
Jesus himself said that his reference to eating and drinking his blood were spiritual sayings and not literal. He said this in response to the reaction of those who became offended because they understood it as literal. So there is really no biblical justification for taking it that way. At least not from Jesus' own point of view.
BTW
Your statements are not a replica of the ones to which I responded so what I said cannot be addressing the points you bring up. I was responding to the statement that the Bible is written in a nonsensical way and doesn't contain a diversity of language usage such as metaphor, simile, hyperbole, irony, sarcasm, personification, parables, poetic conventions, and symbols which stand for ideas. These are plentiful in the Bible and anyone claiming otherwise comes across as not being familiar with it. The Song of Solomon, in which he praises the beauty of the Shulamite maiden is another. Then we have Revelation which is almost totally symbolic and we are told it in its introduction.
Many of the prophecies given in the book of Daniel contain symbols such as trees, rocks, mountains, and beasts standing for governments. We know that they are because first the symbols are used followed by their interpretation. So when someone makes a statement saying that the Bible is a book predominantly of one style it's only natural to assume that the person isn't familiar with the book he has chosen to criticize.
BTW
If this post is a bit disorganized its because AOL is asking me if I want to remain on line but when I look for the option to say yes there is nothing. So in order to prevent getting cut off I had to write it piecemeal fashion.
Why not use the term 'medicine'?
(Thus, God is a hummingbird? Confused am I. ) 
