Some public schools are attempting to teach the entire Old and New Testaments as “raw” history. "The Bible is being presented as history because it is history," commented a Florida fundamentalist.* In 1997 this website’s editor submitted this question to the international Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars: "Is there an easily read source (such as a list in a dictionary, textbook section/chart, etc.) that provides a consensus of what portions of Scripture report events?"
The reply: "I'm afraid there is no consensus on this. Scholars range from very trusting of the biblical stories' historicity to completely discounting of them. There is relative consensus on some things that are not historical: Esther and Jonah, for example, as well as stories that give significant evidence of known folk literary styles." This reply conveys well the range of scholarship among worldwide Anglicans as well as many other Christian Churches. How, then, can public schools in the United States teach the Bible as exact, neutral history? [*quoted in Gerson, "Public Schools Teach Bible As History" in U.S.News & World Report (1/12/98), p. 23]
Apart from the scholarly explorations, what does The Episcopal Church teach about the Bible as history? "Some stories in the Bible are unquestionably myths in the sense that they are symbols that have been extended into stories without losing their qualities of spontaneousness and significance. The story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden is such a myth. ... One does not have to believe that Adam and Eve were historical figures to know that people universally find it easier to do wrong than right, think they know better than God, and prefer their own wills to his. ... By the same token, there are sections of the Bible that are clearly intended to be history. ... The narratives are never reported merely for the sake of conveying accurate information about past events. The stories are always told from a theological perspective. Events are judged from the point of view of whether the participants obeyed God or disobeyed him." [From The Bible for Today's Church, a 1979 volume of The Church's Teaching Series, pp. 79ff.] Note that all events, whether recorded in the Bible or secular texts, are written from some point of view; none is neutral or “raw.”
Nonetheless, the ancient Hebrew people based their individual and corporate lives on the pivotal Exodus event, perceived as an act of God; the central event for New Testament communities was the Resurrection of Christ. Within these and other historical narratives in the Bible (and momentous events recorded outside the Bible) are wondrous metaphorical embellishments, heightenings, exaggerations, and interpretive elements.