Religion

Some of them spend their time trying to figure out what the literal meaning is or in other words they are just translating the original authorship into modern language with the highest degree of fidelity possible. All languages have words and phrases with multiple meanings. Given almost all of the bible was passed on for decades or centuries by oral tradition from illiterate people and we don't know when or by whom or where the vast majority of it came from, the degree of fidelity is quite low.

From the literal translation, which we know is already riddled with all sorts of unavoidable errors during that process, other theologians will try and derive what the original authors actually meant. Each step of this process inherits the errors produced from the ones before. The example you gave for a figure of speech is another guess in the process. Was that figure of speech consistent from the time the oral tradition started to when it was written down? Maybe. It's also possible and quite likely the oral tradition started as something else more or less specific and evolved from there. Anyone who tries to tell you they know with any degree of certainty what the original authors actually meant can safely be assumed to be quite full of shit. When that person's objectivity is clouded by notions of hocus pocus, you no longer have to assume.

My dad started out as a pious Christian who bought into the mainstream Christian view of what the bible meant. By the time he finished his seminary education he had abandoned Christianity in favor of a universalist view. Some of the most respected Christian theologians are non-Christians, including agnostics.