[Fyron]

"The scriptures say that when the 13th tribe landed on Earth, they looked up into the heavens and saw their 12 brothers." - Starbuck

"There is a place where you can look up into the sky and see the consellations of the 12 colonies." - President

"I don't know what good its gonna do us though; what are we supposed to do, search the entire galaxy for one particular star pattern?" - Starbuck

"There, Scorpio. I've seen that before. Thats the Lagoon Nebula." - Apollo

"Thats astral body M-8. Thats a long way from here." - Adama

"Yeah. But at least now we have a map and a direction." - Apollo

- cut to speech at podium -

(emphasis added)

=0=

Doesn't seem very metaphorical to me to refer to abstract pictures as a map and a direction to search for in the entire galaxy. The characters (at least Starbuck and Apollo) are interpreting the scriptures literally here, not seeing the map as metaphorical or representative.