Isn’t the literal understanding of sacred texts and elements of tradition supposed to allow believers, disciples, to access a level of understanding, albeit inferior to the profound meaning of this teaching, allowing them to grasp some fragments of it and representing a pedagogical step towards accessing the real and profound meaning ?
Yet it happens that this literal meaning, or at least the literal attachment to this meaning, is so emotionally charged that it no longer fulfills its didactic function and becomes more of a springboard, a soft mattress, on which believers become rigid, comfortable in their interpretation, rejecting or obscuring any other understanding.
Notes & Silence 
I have been within a literalist tradition.
Its purpose? The stifling of the spirit and the prevention of such « access ».
I have heard literalists proclaim the danger of any imagination, free thought, individual insight. Only narrow concentration on the words is acceptable.
I learned to dislike religion, and to loathe it when reduced to an act of narrow literary criticism
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When reduced to such a stifling entreprise…Religion is long gone.
The ‘religere’ function is constrained to a psycho-social expression.
No religion to be found there.
The label does not make the cheese.
The book, the cover
L’habit ne fait pas le moine.
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