Verity Brown responded to my letter (“We need to listen”, Opinion, April 5) and raises other issues which, through the courtesy of your column, I should like to respond to.

I agree with her that we need not take every word of the Bible literally, since some of the language in it is figurative or picture language.

Nevertheless, the Bible is true, perfect and God-breathed – and God stands on His word as the touchstone of truth.

Verity writes; “If we believe literally that God gave the land of Israel to the Jews in perpetuity with no room for negotiation ever, we make the same error as believing the creation story literally.”

However, the Bible makes it clear (Genesis chapter 15) that the land gift to the Jews was an unconditional and everlasting covenant for 1,000 generations – that’s 50,000 years! (see 1 Chronicles 16 vv 14-18).

Under the Mosaic Covenant, the tenancy of the land was entirely dependent on the Jews keeping God’s law.

This they did not do and were expelled from Israel.

However, God promised many times that at a future date He would regather His people; this is being fulfilled right now with almost half of the world’s Jews back in Israel.

The evidence for believing the Bible is very strong: an analysis of the Hebrew verb endings in Genesis shows that the whole book is written in the Hebrew historical narrative style – there is no figurative or picture language in it.

If you deny the creation account and relegate the story of Adam and Eve to the level of a fairy story, then there was no original sin and therefore no need of our saviour Jesus Christ to come and die for our sins. It destroys the good news of the Gospel.

Dr Rod Boggia

Sidcliffe

Sidmouth