It's called "gaslighting."

Convenience.

They cherry pick and twist. They always have

Which genre are you reading is i guess also kind of important; much of the OT is “conquest genre” which contemporaries knew not to read literally, just like we know not to take “The Yankees annihilated the White Sox” literally. So iow are you reading that, or poetry, or mythology, etc

Regarding certain writings (there are many versions of the Bible) there is no such thing as literal. Everything has been translated multiple times and changed through thousands of years so everything is metaphorically. People who think there is any form of 'literal' are only fooling themselves.

Not really, it's all bullshit and discussing bullshit with blind faith religious fanatics is pointless, a complete waste of time and effort.

Believers cherry-pick which parts of the bible they'll follow.
It all depends on which behavior they're trying to justify, or ignore.
Agenda is everything.

Coin toss heads true tails metaphor

The whole point is, that there is no method.

You may use whatever method you like, including just mindless prejudice, to decide which bits you take literally, which metaphorically, and which bits you ignore altogether. And what makes books like the bible, and the religion it founded so popular, is that, since it is such a shambolic scrapbook cobbled together by many different editors sourcing many hundreds of authors, that you can find in it anything you want in it.

So that whatever idea you have, however mad, prejudiced, inhuman, selfish, corrupt, or baseless, you will find support for it in the bible or some christian sect. And having done so, you can then make the fake claim that your ideas have the support and authority of god and sacred tradition. It is the old politicians trick of, if you stand for nothing, you can sell yourself as standing for everything, and a non existent god is the best politician you could possibly get on your side. He never asks you questions, never questions your motives, but always freely lends his vast authority, and that of his writings, to any con-trick you choose. Which accounts for christianities popularity, it is all things to all people, but especially good at being a prop for the fake, phony and dishonest.

If the believers are Evangelical you can count on 98% of everything being literal in their bible teachings.

Their preacher tells them which ones are metaphorical. No debate is ever offered.

Religion ... pure and faultless is this: to help widows and orphans in need and avoiding worldly corruption. James 1:27

Why do you refer to religion as only a theist activity when illogical atheist very well can help widows and orphans while avoiding worldly corruption?

so, the cult of sol will xlate one way, and a seeker will xlate another, and i think one can rely on the way a person interprets to kind of get a "read" on them; but i don't think there is a "correct" translation, per se? One honored method, though, would be to seek a "witness" to an interpretation in another part of the Bible; iow an incorrect interpretation will have no "witness"

"theists" would be prolly the last group i would pay any attention to whatsoever, bible-wise; weird, i know, but many interps come down to a definition? And theists (gnostic ones, anyway) are just going to insist upon theirs, and reject all others, right? Same goes for atheists, imo; nothing wrong with either per se, ok, just that they are now biased
ergo the fact that our word "eternal" comes from "aion: a space of time; an age" just will not sway a theist away from interpreting "eternal" as "forever"

Such are the mental processes of the cognitively deficient, resulting in all manner of logical fallacies, including but not limited to:

• Circular reasoning
• Special pleading
• Strawman
• The fallacy fallacy
• Personal incredulity
• Burden of proof
• Bandwagon
• Appeal to authority
• Begging the question
• Anecdotal
• Cherry picking
• Middle ground

Every theist is different... just like every atheist is different. They (we) all do whatever we have to in order to make life make sense to us, given our different genetic inheritances and very different life experiences. If that means heavily “interpreting” the data that we happen to be aware of to compensate for the data we are not aware of, then so be it. Very little difference, in that regard, between the two camps.

That said, the great majority of theists AND the great majority of atheists take the idea of God literally, the former accepting it as true while the latter rejecting it as untrue.

Only the tiniest of minorities sees value in a metaphorical-only God. In this light, the philosophically significant difference is not between theists and atheists, but between literalists and figuratists. The figuratists have no motivation at all to fudge or deny the data, while the theists and atheists have to maintain their respective delusions with great vigilance.

It boils down to the contest between "faith" and evidence. When one is indoctrinated to believe that faith trumps evidence, that belief is difficult to reject. I speak from experience.
Education, discussion and debate are the path forward. Insulting the faithful is ineffective.

Based upon my decades of experiences with the Christfools, aka, Faithfools, one must first TRY, and it is EXTREMELY difficult/absolutely impossible in fact, to comprehend Christ fool Circular Thinking.
Whereas, we the Non'Believers, Doubters, Agnostics, Atheists and the like, use the Reasoning and Logic centres of both sides of our brain first to dissect the question or whatever is posed to us, then we think and reason our way through it all, weigh up the Pros and the Cons, then, often as needed, discuss the matter further BEFORE coming to a conclusion whether it be merely a tenative one or a permanent one.
In simpler words, We see the effect, look for the cause and check out the reaction and the end result.
The Christfools, imo, simply hear/read what they are told to hear or read, take as being Truth and NOTHING but the Truth and will run around in rings, mentally, to defend, support/verify and validate it EVEN when, in the furtherest corners of their minds they are still questioning, even slightly, but still questioning it non-the-less, that IS their Circular Thinking.