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So let’s talk English Bibles.

There are more “word-for-word” Bibles and there are more “thought-for-thought” Bibles. Technically speaking, the two categories are “Formal Equivalence” (FE) and “Dynamic Equivalence” (DE). The FE translations attempt to preserve the “forms” (e.g. word order, poetic types, grammar, etc.), where as the DE Bibles attempt to determine the meaning to the original audience and then reproduce that dynamic relationship between Author and Original Reader and Translator and Modern Reader. The DE translator seeks to find the “kernel of meaning” and reword it so that the modern reader understands that meaning just as was intended by the Bible author.
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A couple more types of figurative language. These are fairly familiar to us.

(3) Simile: this is a figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced with the words “like”, “as” (or even “than”).

(4) Metaphor: this is similar to a simile, but it’s an analogy between two objects or ideas, conveyed by the use of a word instead of another.

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John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

So if the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, then we don’t need Hermeneutics, and for that matter, we don’t need the church telling us what to believe, right? Wrong!
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Shouldn’t we take the Bible “literally”?

Yes we should! What I mean by this is simply that we should avoid the allegorical school.

It is honestly quite dishonest to simply say “it means what it say” because the truth of that kind of method is “it means what it says to you.” That is a very subjective way to read the Bible.
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