Christians, Muslims, and Jews - what methods do you employ to determine what is metaphorical and what is to be taken literally in the Bible/Koran?

If a literal translation doesn’t make sense or contradicts another part of the Bible, I ponder it further. Also, I pray about it and ask God to give me the answer.

I’m not religious, but I am Jewish. I don’t worry about anything be literal or not in any of the books. When I here a quote from the bible or read a passage I consider what it is trying to say and how it can be applied. The books were written by men, and some of it might be things they actually observed and some not. I think the main point is to read those books as a philosophical book, a way to look at life and how to live life in a way that will help yourself and others. Some of the punishments and cruelty has to do with the time they were written, and that is basically junk to me. We hopefully are more understanding and empathetic as a human beings today vs. 5,000 or 2,000 years ago. Pick your book.

When I was a Christian, I just assumed it was all metaphorical (except the existence of God), kind of like story telling. I also supposed that it was written by people who were trying their best to explain things they couldn’t understand, given the limited knowledge available at that time. Misinterpretation of what they were seeing/experiencing.

In my experience, it was never a matter of me applying a method to separate the metaphorical from the literal. We were simply told what was metaphorical and what was literal, and that was that.

As a Christian, I assumed it was all literal, because it wouldn’t make sense for God to write something that was up for interpretation, that couldn’t be understood by anyone who read it. He either said it or he didn’t.

Nothing can be taken literally in the Bible since it has been translated so many times (and so long ago) by people who may have had their own idea as to what it should say.