The problem is these people have been conditioned to believe the Bible is meant to be interpreted literally, and always has been, which forces them to go really far out of their way to make their own faith untenable and absurd by insisting on torturing logic and contorting the texts to force them to operate in ways they were never intended.

It's honestly the single biggest unforced error in the history of....a lot of things.

If you actually read the Bible, the fact that much of this is metaphorical is not subtle. At all.

Like, the main character teaches moral lessons through the use of parables. That's kind of a big fat clue. If modern fundamentalists were at the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus never would've finished his sermon because people would keep interrupting him to ask for the Prodigal Son's height and phone number.

Besides, there's entire books of poetry, songs, and folklore. Books that are intended to convey information--Numbers, Leviticus, etc--make their purpose very clear and provide very, very specific information.