I don’t see how the fact that there are divergent interpretations of some scriptural stories is particularly surprising or problematic
It’s problematic because it provides a ready-made excuse to deny having changed when you get something wrong and you’re forced to change. “Oh, we didn’t really change anything, look, we’re following this old tradition”, even though you could have decided any one of several mutually exclusive things and still been able to claim you’re following a tradition.
Beliefs about whether or not the snake is literal are not, and never were, “core beliefs” of Christians. Core beliefs are the things that are contained in the creed, like that Jesus rose from the dead and so on.
If you found conclusive scientific proof that Jesus did not rise from the dead, very few Christians would accept that. The reaction to that, no matter how strong the proof, would be very different from the reaction to evolution.
It’s problematic because it provides a ready-made excuse to deny having changed when you get something wrong and you’re forced to change. “Oh, we didn’t really change anything, look, we’re following this old tradition”, even though you could have decided any one of several mutually exclusive things and still been able to claim you’re following a tradition.
Beliefs about whether or not the snake is literal are not, and never were, “core beliefs” of Christians. Core beliefs are the things that are contained in the creed, like that Jesus rose from the dead and so on.
If you found conclusive scientific proof that Jesus did not rise from the dead, very few Christians would accept that. The reaction to that, no matter how strong the proof, would be very different from the reaction to evolution.