Extract There are various ways in which one person can communicate a message, a claim that something is so. The obvious way is to use sentences of normal grammatical forms containing words having their literal senses. But there are other ways: we may use words analogically and metaphorically, and use models, parables, and poems. And words are not the only vehicle by which a message may be communicated. Parables may be acted (e.g. in liturgy), and moral instruction may be conveyed by example. All of these latter ways for conveying a message are more prominent in less scientifically orientated cultures. Not that models and metaphors lack importance in scientific discourse; one cannot do without them anywhere, but they are less prominent there than elsewhere. Cultures very different from our own, such as the cultures in which the great religions arose, may employ a variety of methods to convey a message; and it requires some sensitivity to the culture to recognize the job which words (or other devices) are being used to do, for instance when they are being used to convey a historical claim, when they are being used to make a philosophical claim, and when they are being used simply to encourage and inspire. The first part of this book will analyse these different ways of conveying a message. I hope that this discussion will be of general philosophical interest, as well as of interest to those concerned with the topic which is the ultimate focus of the book. That topic is the topic of revelation. Some religions claim that God has revealed certain truths which it matters that humans believe. Both Christianity and Islam claim this, and so to a lesser extent does Judaism. The focus of this book is: what are the grounds for believing some claim of this kind, that some book or creed or act conveys revealed truth? Part I is a necessary prolegomenon to this enquiry, because we need to be clear about the criteria for determining what the message of the purported revelation is before we can set about assessing its credibility. I apologize to those readers, presumably the majority, whose interest in this book is an interest in the credibility of claims of revelation, for the rigour of the philosophical discussions and distinctions of Part I; and ask them to take on trust their relevance to what is to come.