I will have to apologize, myself, for taking so long to get back to you. I haven't had a whole lot of time, and I didn't really want to just fire off a reply when I had a moment. You took your time with your reply, so I want to take time with mine!

So, here's the thing: Christians are not Muslims, and the Bible is not the Quran. We are not a "people of the Book." The Bible has not been considered the sole source of Christian belief by any group up until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century.

Can you rephrase that? I don't think that's true for all denominations, if I'm understanding correctly. There are a few denominations that solely rely on the Bible.

As far as I am aware, what I said is true. The various denominations who do treat the Bible as if it were a Quran arose after the 16th Century. Prior to the 16th Century, you had the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches, with the occasional smatterings of smaller sects and heretical groups running about. There were also various smaller Christian Churches that arose out of Persian Christianity (which, IIRC, somewhat includes the Mar Thoma Christians of India).

While there were significant differences, mainly on certain theological matters, among these various Churches, as far as I am aware, none of them treated the Scriptures as the sole source of doctrine in the way modern Protestants do.

I understand completely, but there are also Christian denominations that do believe in reading it as straightforward as possible. For example, a coworker of mine doesn't drink alcohol because even though the Bible only says not to drink to excess, it doesn't specify what "excess" is - so he abstains entirely except during communion.

Reading the Scriptures "straightforwardly" is not the same thing as reading them literally. One can read the Scriptures straightfowardly and recognize "this is obviously allegory," or "this is obviously metaphor."

I mean, take a look at the Song of Solomon. Is the straightforward reading that the beloved actually drips nectar from her lips and has literal honey and milk beneath her tongue (Song of Solomon 4:11)? Because that is, literally, what he says. Or, is the straightforward reading to recognize the poetic device of metaphor at play and glean the image from the flowery language?

There are a lot of biblical literalists. Even if you yourself don't consider yourself one, there are many who are and end up forming some very logical arguments based on accepting the infallibility of the bible.

So, here's the interesting thing: very, very few people who insist on Biblical literalism are, in fact, Biblical literalists. For one thing, very many Biblical literalists would deny up one side and down another that Holy Communion is truly the Body and Blood of Christ, despite this being the exact thing Christ says it is! They read "take, eat, this is my body..." and "drink of it, all of you, this is my blood..." and Christ's teaching in John 6 that, if you do not eat his Body and drink his Blood, you have no life in you, and they say, "He was obviously speaking figuratively."

For another, just look at the wild theories they come up with based on Revelation! And, yet, it's quite rare to find anyone who claims that the Antichrist will have a literal beast hanging around (usually, this Beast is interpreted as a man of some sort). Now, to be fair, I have actually met a person who did, back in my days as a Baptist, and that seemed like the craziest idea, even though I was a Biblical literalist!

However, as you stated, we should interpret it with the knowledge of the culture and tradition at the time - which tells us that this isn't a metaphor (although we can take it to be that), but these passages are all included in areas discussing dietary laws. We can use it as a metaphor, sure. But that wasn't the intent of the people writing it.

Well....yes and no, and this is where things can get interesting with Tradition. The Bible is both divine and human.

On the human element, you have the literal meaning of the text. So, let's take this phrase, "Out of Egypt have I called my son." This is from Hosea 11:1, which is a passage about vis

I can think of a lot of other examples where protestants have taken passages that were taken to be literal, and claimed that they were metaphors. The reality is that the bible isn't entirely layers upon layers of metaphors. We don't look at parts of the ten commandments and say "Well, thou shalt not steal really means we shouldn't steal things of high value." - some passages are just plain meant to be taken literally.