I've used the Obi-Wan approach to the early Old Testament for a while now: I believe Genesis, for example, is true, from a certain point of view.
Allow me to elaborate. If you stare at a single object, everything else in your field of view seems fuzzy; your peripheral vision is blurred. Those objects aren't actually fuzzy, but we can't ascertain any details of those objects while staring at the first object.
In the Bible, the Incarnation of Jesus Christ (God becoming a man who was born just over two thousand years ago) is THE central focus. We are to take as literal truth His birth, life, death, and resurrection.
If we look too far away from that central event, the Bible moves from literal truth to metaphorical truth. Going forward, we run into the Revelation, the prophetic (and almost clearly metaphorical) vision of the future. Going all the way backward, we find Genesis, and the assertion that the universe was created in six days. I believe that both should be taken as metaphor - truth, but not fact.
I could well be wrong - God could have made the world exactly as described in Genesis. If that's so, it doesn't affect my faith. My faith does not hinge a specific interpretation of Genesis.
But at the same time, I still believe the story of creation has some worthwhile truths about God and His creation: He DID create the universe, one way or another. We are a very special (possibly unique) creation of God's, created "in His image." And we were once His faithful creations, have since fallen into sin, and will be redeemed.
The biggest question that remains is this: at what point does metaphor become literal truth?
Well, it certainly seems the lives of King David and Jesus are to be taken literally, and it seems the first chapter of Genesis and most of Revelation is to be taken metaphorically. The line is somewhere in between.
I personally think the lines can be drawn from about Genesis 12 to Revelation 3: everything between those two chapters should be taken as literal truth. (The only possible exception is prophecy and parable, which should be interpreted as metaphor, but even that should be accepted as the literal words of the teacher.)
(Again, it's possible that earlier chapters in Genesis and later chapters in Revelation are to be taken literally, too; what I've given is the bare minimum of my personal belief.)
And one last thing of note on this issue:
Do NOT interpret a passage as metaphor on the basis that it contains the miraculous.
As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, if Christ WASN'T raised from the dead, then Christians are the most miserable and pitiable men on the planet.
The Resurrection MUST be taken literally. If THAT can be taken literally, so too can all of Christ's miracles - parlor tricks compared to the Resurrection.
And if Christ did walk on water and raise Lazarus, then it's equally possible that God literally parted the sea in Exodus.
And as a final note, in response to an issue raised in this thread, I believe that God is honestly neither a he nor a she - that He had no body and thus no gender/sex.
That said, the Bible uses words like "Father" and "Son" to describe the relationship between the First Person of the Trinity and the Second Person, and I believe those words are useful in communicating to us certain aspects about that relationship. It's useful to keep in mind those terms only go so far, but that doesn't mean we should stop using them.
It's kinda like when Christ said He is "the way, the truth, and the life." When He said He is "the way," He didn't literally mean a paved road, but the term is still useful.
(It's also easier for a human to have pray in personal terms to a "he" like God or a "she" like Mary. Praying to God as an "it" or "s/he" may make a personal relationship that much more difficult.)
And if God Himself is not really male, if the Second Person of the Trinity isn't really male, Jesus Christ (the Incarnation of the Second Person) IS LITERALLY MALE.
Jesus was literally the child of a specific human (Mary) and hailed from a certain part of the world (Nazareth). He was literally a "he."
