&gt; Biblical literalists are generally not accused of &quot;misinterpreting&quot; the Christian Bible.<p>Yes, they are. Particularly by other Christians.<p>&gt; but it&#x27;s hard to accuse someone of &quot;misinterpreting&quot; something because they follow its literal meaning.<p>No, its quite easy: outside of the context of religion, we see it all the time when people are accused of misinterpreting something by treating either one-off metaphors or colloquial figures of speech as if their meaning was what is suggested by the literal meanings of the individual words. Or when one of many possible literal meaning (words often have more than one nonfigurative meaning) is chosen, despite the fact that the context (possibly very broad context) suggests a different interpretation, whether a different literal interpretation or a nonliteral one.<p>Its no harder to accuse people of misinterpretation for pursuing a particular literal interpretation when the thing being misinterpreted is a religious text.