Literally? I'm not so sure of that, FL. Considering the literacy levels in the eras we're talking about here, those who could write at all tended to be scholars of one kind or another. And any reading up on mythology and story-telling in general--especially stories of a religious nature--will indicate that there were solidly established conventions for this kind of narration, and they were pretty much pandemic. These conventions included a lot of metaphor, and story elements that we would probably now refer to as "boilerplate." Again, referring to the way such things as the miraculous birth of heroes was narrated. And the manner in which these heroes died or otherwise left the earth. These are only two of the common elements of such stories.

This, combined with some of the strange interpretations of scripture when some enigmatic phrase appears that was plainly understood at the time and in the environment in which the story was told, but due to cultural ignorance, we try to give it a modern interpretation and come up getting it all wrong. This happens a lot in books like the Bible. I've done a little scholarly work along this line, and I can cite example after example.

Hard-charging evangelists and others who tend to quote Bible verses out of context usually wind up hating my guts. Often in a less than Christian way. It's not that I'm unreligious. It's just that I don't like seeing religious texts reduced to the level of, say, the Boy Scout Handbook.

Don Firth