Huh? I don't get the connection between the literal and not you are implying here.
There is a view of the Bible that holds it is an "inspired" book and that not every word in it is literally true. If you hold to the inspired viewpoint, then the bible is not perfect, and you have to judgment calls and interpret various passages. This is intellectually more challenging, so the fundies opt for the lazier viewpoint.
For example, thou shalt not commit adultery. Forty two year old Bob is married to Betty. Betty is a 40 year old shrew who denies him much of everything fun. Bob can truly say that he is not in love with Betty, yet they have two teenage sons in the house.
Buffy is 25 and was run off the set of "Cancun Girls Run Amok" for too much sex.
Bob decides that he is in love with Buffy who fills his nights with love and pleasure, while he in turn fills a certain void in her life.
Does Bob commit adultery with Buffy, and thus pass the lonely hours married and providing a home to his sons and Betty or does Bob adhere to the Commandment and eschew Buffy?
You are Bob's pastor and he cometh to you for advice. If he stays away from Buffy, he's going to have to divorce Betty or he will die from a buildup of certain natural energies that must be periodically released.
However, upon divorce, Betty suffers. She no longer has her own special victim to torure. The two sons suffer. They will spend the majority of their time with Shrewwife, who will not provide them with nurturing either. Shrewwife will holler at them, attempt to discipline them with tales of how their own screwups cause her distress (as opposed to the typical expediant male solution of simply clobbering them!) Betty, meanwhile, being 40, a shrew, and with two pieces of baggage, will begin sleeping with Mike, the local meth distributor.
As a unit, Bob, Betty, and Sons will have fewer financial resources and Sons may not make college. Betty will be as happy as a pig in slop being mistreated by Mike, but he will abandon her quickly for a younger dupe. Buffy will no doubt required certain bodily enhancements of the siliconic variety and much new clothing, or she will degenerate into Betty.
In short, divorce makes the family suffer. Adultery, however, permits the natural order of things to continue. Everybody is happier.
Now if you believe Noah took two elephants aboard the yacht, you advise suffering. If however, you believe that dinosaurs bones are really, really old, you advise Bob to simply have his affair.
Does it make sense now?
parsy, the sage.