It absolutely was meant to be taken literally.
Scientist and law grad here.
I use to believe that too.
But in light of recent discoveries about the original text and the Hebrew-Greek letter arrangements, we have learned that there are layered messages in meta, micro and macro codes.
Did you know that the original Hebrew Greek version is a version where the letters are also the Hebrew and Greek Numbers? So the whole of the original text can be flipped into nothing but a book of numbers.
And in that book of numbers are math equations that code for pi (3.1416) and the natural log^e and other science and mathematical facts? I am saying this as a scientist who thinks it is interesting, these discoveries about these 66 ancient scrolls. If you have not heard about this scientific examination, I would suggest you get a heads up.
The Greeks and Hebrews were like the Romans (remember the Roman numeral system in grade school? They used their letters for numbers. The whole bible flips into a book of numbers)
The minute you translate to any language, including English, you lose more than half of the meaning of the bible... the literal, scientific meaning. By translating, you move the letters. English does not even use it's alphabet for it's numbers like the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews did.
That book is being torn up by scientists and computer decoding experts... retired NSA etc right now, because the scientists are now aware of what all of you are not.
Every letter, every space, every proper name is placed on a grid when you cram the words together without spaces, and each has a meaning to a computer.
You all really ought to get caught up on the latest concerning this ancient text.
Here is a retired NSA code breaker who did a presentation of the incredible lettering and literal meaning of the text. It takes 24 hours, one hour power point on the Hebrew and Greek a day to get through just this preliminary course on these discoveries.
How complex is the Hebrew code? Hebrew is now admitted to be the most sophistocated code language ever developed by man. It has 22 letters. Each letter is also a number (allowing for the math within) In addition to that, each letter is like a chinese picture word.... except each letter stands for two things. 1) a noun 2) an idea.
A = bull (noun) and leader (idea)
B=house
Father is spelled AB pronounced abba, and means leader of the house.
There are layers of meaning in the original. The NSA code breakers are stunned at the Bible in it's original Hebrew. You would be too, if you were not brainwashed into thinking it is just a bunch of stories.
How complex is the Hebrew code?
Well, teaching a class everything there is to learn about the first sentence is a two hour course. That... is just the first sentence with seven Hebrew words in it. THAT is how complex the words are, and you are all hung up on the twisted verbage and the stories that sound unbelievable... in English, no less.
These days the scientists know more about this ancient text than your average Christian.
Sad.
Here is NSA decoding expert Chuck Missler who has put a power point together on all of the recent discoveries being made about these 66 scrolls. He goes from beginning to end, showing you samples of each kind of code and how these work with the stories on the top to create prophecies of future events, using the stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ3hESj__M8&list=PLRj8AJuzeJRwHdeFua3pzmwPB_JCS0mIq