In the course of another discussion, the participants (myself included) became engrossed by what seemed to me to be a set of closely-related separate issues. I would therefore like to ask the larger community here:

• What "academic rigor" means generally
• Whether the standards of "academic rigor" however define are applicable to the study of sacred scripture--note this discussion was in a specifically Christian context, but I would be very interested to hear what people of other faiths have to say (and I'm sure other people would be as well).
  
• If not, why not?
• If so, what concerns should be taken as primary when interpreting scripture? How should scientific evidence be taken into account? How should one deal with the existence of multiple conflicting textual lineages? How important is historical and cultural context?
• Should standards for interpreting poetry or verse differ from those applied to (ostensibly) historical documents or other types of literature? Why or why not?
  
• I would also be interested in hearing from any Creationists/ID people/Biblical literalists, justifications as to why they feel their chosen method of interpretation--or non-interpretation--is the best, or the most valid, or the only valid method for interpreting scripture.

Hopefully we can have an interesting, civil, mutually informative and beneficial discussion. Thanks!

@theonionman: the questions you've posed could fuel many a dissertation (and probably have!). I'll offer my two-cents'-worth in respect of only a couple of them: 1. if you google "academic rigor", you get about 400,000 hits, and at least those on the first page or two offer reasonable definitions of the concept; as an "academic" myself, I advise students to: read exhaustively, think critically, question sceptically, write lucidly, revise/revise/revise. 2. I see no reason why these standards should not apply to the study of scripture - Bart Ehrman, who knows a great deal more about scripture than I ever will, obviously applies them in both his popular and academic writings. Ehrman, of course, also has a great deal of insight into the "multiple conflicting textual lineages" which bedevil (so to speak) biblical exegesis.

sorry about the lack of spacing in the post above - Slate doesn't seem to like my MacBook lately.

I'll paraphrase since I don't have the reference handy: love God with all you mind, body and soul and love your neighbor as yourself, the rest is just commentary.