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Abstract: Part 1 (Chs.1–4) investigates how truth can be conveyed in poetry, parable, or allegory, by analogy and metaphor, within false presuppositions about science and history. Part 2 (Chs. 5 and 6) considers what would show that some book or creed constitutes a revelation from God. Its content needs to be not intrinsically implausible and also to be confirmed by miracle. Part 3 (Chs. 7–11) considers what would show that the Christian creeds and Bible constitute revealed truth. It analyses the criteria for a society descended from the society of the apostles being the Church founded by Jesus Christ and shown by his miraculous Resurrection to be a source of revealed truth; and argues that the authority of creeds and Bible depends on their being authenticated by that church, as revealed by God. The Bible is to be interpreted in the light of the creeds and of our knowledge of science and history. These criteria for interpreting it were recognized before the canon of the Bible was given its final form by the Church.

Keywords: allegory, analogy, Bible, Christianity, creed, God, Jesus, metaphor, parable, philosophy of religion, presupposition, Resurrection, revelation, Richard Swinburne, theology