Yes, the Bible should be interpreted literally, while also taking into consideration the author's intended meaning and the original audience's interpretation. Using the literal-historical-grammatical method to understand Scripture allows readers to do this. This approach acknowledges the Bible's use of literary devices, such as metaphors, hyperbole, and symbolism, but this acknowledgement does not negate the Bible’s literal message. For example, when Jesus says, "I am the door," it is a metaphor, not Christ claiming to be a literal door. Similarly, the Psalms speak of taking shelter under God's wings, which is a zoomorphism , ascribing bird traits to God to create imagery, not a description of God being a bird. Understanding these literary devices enhances our comprehension without undermining the Bible's truth as a nonfiction text that communicates literal truths.
Skeptics of the Bible often ask Christians, "You don't take the Bible literally, do you?" The question reveals an attitude of disbelief, an incredulity that anyone could actually believe that the Bible should be read as nonfiction literature. If the questioner knows anything about the Bible, sometimes he'll try to bolster his case by asking follow-up questions like, "In John, Jesus says, 'I am the door'—is Jesus really a door?" or "In Psalms, the writer asks to take shelter under God's wings—is God a bird, then?" This line of argumentation is known in logic as reductio ad absurdum, in which a proposition (or set of propositions) is refuted by showing that it leads to a logically absurd consequence.
The literal-historical-grammatical method of biblical interpretation aims to discover the meaning of a passage as the original author would have intended it and as the original hearers would have understood it. This interpretive approach embraces the fact that the Bible includes various genres (narrative, poetry, didactic teaching, etc.) and literary techniques (metaphors, hyperbole, etc.) but states that such things do not take away from the literalness of the Bible at all. In fact, these techniques are standard fare in nonfiction literature and are used in everyday language to communicate truth. For example, when the Bible mentions "sunset," it doesn't mean that the sun actually went down from a scientific perspective. Even today, meteorologists don't say that "tomorrow's earth rotation will make the sun disappear at 9 PM," but speak of the "sunset."
When we can understand figures of speech and other literary devices properly, then we can understand that their use in Scripture in no way takes away from its nonfiction message.