I found this quote from Jewel's Treatise (pp. 50-1) to be relevant to the discussion: Many think the Apostle's speech is hardly true of the whole Scripture, that all and every part of the Scripture is profitable. Much is spoken of genealogies, and pedigrees, of lepers, of sacrificing goats and oxen, &c. these seem to have little profit in them, but to be vain and idle. If they shew vain in thine eyes, yet hath not the Lord set them down in vain. “The words of the Lord are pure words, as the silver tried in a furnace of earth fined seven times'.” There is no sentence, no clause, no word, no syllable, no letter, but it is written for thy instruction; there is not one jot, but it is sealed and signed with the blood of the Lamb. Our imaginations are idle, our thoughts are vain; there is noidleness, no vanity in the word of God. Those oxen and goats which were sacrificed, teach thee to kill and sacrifice the uncleanness and filthiness of thy heart: they teach thee, that thou art guilty of death, when thy life must be re deemed by the death of some beast: they lead thee to believe the forgiveness of sins, by a more perfect sacrifice, because “it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.” That leprosy teacheth thee to know the uncleanness and leprosy of thy soul. Those genealogies and pedigrees lead us to the birth of our Saviour Christ. So that the whole word of God is pure and holy: no word, no letter, no syllable, no point or prick thereof, but is written and preserved for thy sake. This gives us some idea of how Christians regarded the word of God in those days. I don't think they were the least bit inclined to think that some bit here or some passage there didn't belong in Scripture. They thought all of it was "the word of God" (p. 6) which "the Lord hath spoken." Nothing written by any church father could come close to the level of authority inherent in the word of God.
Interesting though that he chose to accentuate a metaphorical interpretation of passages originally intended only to be literal, thus demonstrating the way the meaning of scripture can change as God's purposes for the world are reveled to us in time. Many OT passages changed in interpretation, relevance and importance, after Our Lord's death and Resurrection. Even the most apparently redundant passages in scripture are there according to a divine purpose, though we, through ignorance both spiritual and intellectual, might not know what that pupose may be, nevertheless its removal from scripture would be irresponsible literary iconaclasm and brutish, ignorant philistinism. (In my opinion), passages, however doubtful their relevence to the Gospel, as we see it may be, should never be expurgated but merely printed in a slightly smaller point size or italicized or numbered or lettered with an explanatory marginal note. (This, in a study bible, even to include widely accepted possible interpolations, latter additions and doubtful interpretations of the ms. texts.) I have never at any time suggested that Marcianism, with its 'slash and burn' attitude to holy scripture, could ever be acceptable. .