I was lucky. I was raised Methodist, which didn't have a literal
   view of the Bible and in my mid 20s, I spent a few years as
   Eastern Orthodox Christian, learning a lot about the
   Greek/Russian/Coptic Christian view of history... after ALMOST
   going into seminary to become a Roman Catholic priest (but I
   hadn't converted yet - I found "Eastern Orthodox in the yellow
   pages, called up the priest, his wife answered, I was instantly
   impressed).

   Anyway - while I'm not involved with any of that now [I don't
   have a particular religion at present] - while I was obsessing
   for a few years, I read EVERYTHING by the Desert Monks of the
   5th-12th centuries that I could find. These ppl spent their
   lives n the desert, or in caves - and just, well, thought about
   stuff a lot.

   A lot of the best of theology came from those dirty hermits in
   the Eastern Church, and one of the best things is some pretty
   intense symbolic interpretations of ... well... just about
   everything in the Bible.

   I don't know as much about the Roman Catholic way, but from what
   I understand, taking the Bible as "Gospel Truth" is a _really_
   modern thing... starting in America at some point after the
   Reformation.

   But for 1500 years before that, nope, wasn't generally literal.
   Maybe to a few but the people back then didn't have TV,
   internet, newspapers and such, so they were REALLY BIG into
   other types of symbolism to fill up their minds - to help them
   deal with the sometimes great, sometimes cruddy world we're
   plopped into and giving it meaning.

   "Dashing your children against the rocks" was symbolic of
   stopping bad thoughts before they grow too powerful in the mind.
   Psychology isn't new; religions have been practicing it for
   thousands of years. People were never *stupid*; we have the same
   brain capacities we had 1000 years ago, 5000 years ago, 10,000
   years ago and we had to fill it up with _something_ to keep it
   going.