[zeek]

As an alternative to the historical-factual method of interpretation that Tomes seems to be advocating, why not consider an historical-metaphorical reading such as Marcus Borg describes as follows?

■ The Bible is a human product, not a divine product. It is the product of two ancient communities. The Jewish Bible—what Christians call the Old Testament—is the product of ancient Israel. The New Testament is the product of the early Christian movement. To see the Bible as the work of human beings does not deny the reality of God, or the reality that the Bible was divinely inspired. But the Bible is not a divine product. Rather, it’s a collection of writings by our spiritual ancestors, the biblical ancestors of the Christian tradition. It tells us how they experienced the sacred, saw the world, told their stories, and understood what life with God involved.
■ The Bible is not to be interpreted literally, factually, and absolutely. Its language is often metaphorical, and its primary concern is not factual reporting. Its laws and ethical teaching are not absolutes relevant to all times and places, but are the products of those ancient communities and address their time and place. This does not mean that its laws and ethics are irrelevant to our time. But they cannot simply be directly transferred to the twenty-first century.
■ Seeing the Bible this way does not deny its status as Christian sacred Scripture. Instead, this viewpoint holds that Scripture is sacred not because of its origin, but because our spiritual ancestors canonized it—that is, declared it to be sacred. As sacred Scripture, the Bible is, along with Jesus, the foundation of Christian understanding and identity. It is also a way that the Spirit of God continues to speak to us today. Thus the Bible is sacred scripture in its status and function, but not in origin—not because it comes from God as no other book does.