"when you read Jonah and come to that "Oh, Duh!" moment when you realize it's an allegory, then you begin to understand that much of the Bible is allegory" ····

Hmmm. Maybe, Joe. But you pick a nice simple, clear example. Further up, you say "The Genesis stories fall more clearly into the category of "myth" ... Exodus, I dunno".

Now, when you say "The Genesis stories", do you just mean the Creation parts, or the whole book which goes on much beyond that? - right up to Joseph & his brethren. Surely we need that bit if we are to get to the Egyptian exile, without which no Exodus for you to 'dunno' about? And which bits of that, anyhow? Presumably you are thinking of parting of Red Sea & Manna from Heaven & so on ~ but I take it you don't mean Moses was a mythical or allegorical figure, do you? & how about the Golden Calf? Obvious symbolic signif; but did it happen IYO?

So, taking your words 'much of' from first snip above, what criterion would you suggest for deciding *which* bits?

Can't help thinking that the answer may tend to the side of the ones you won't convince anyone that they could have been the case. A bit of an easy get-out it seems to me, if I may say so, without a bit clearer categorisation to distinguish the 'Duh' bits, before this argument is going to convince us lot, whether 'lumped together' or not!, that the basic hypothesis, of the existence, or the necessity, of some sort of creative/controlling entity, called 'God', should be any part of the equation.

Or do you postulate him as a 'I dunno'?

~M~