It is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth — whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify.

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, polymath

Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany (1615)

http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/212gal.html