are in a realm of enlightenment that transcendsordinary thought and speech and [which] therefore, is closed to conceptual analyses such as the ones providedin this book" (p. 11). So Gracia strictly limits the analysis to revelation of meanings with propositional content.Second, we are concerned texts divinely inspired-texts where a divine being either directly or indirectly intends tocommunicate meaning to believers. As a result some texts of religious traditions, such as Buddhist Sutras, don'tfall within the scope of analysis. One wouldn't have theological interpretations of non-theological, religious texts.The main terms needing definition are "revelation", "interpretation" and "text." According to Gracia, three thingsmust be in place for there to be a revelation. There must be "the facts revealed, actual or potential receivers,and an actual or potential act of receiving" (p. 14). In addition to these three general characteristics of allrevelation, divine revelation includes "a divine agent, the intention to reveal on the part of the divinity, and thedivine act of revealing" (p. 14). Among these elements, one could mean by "revelation" the divine act, the divinelyintended meaning, the event of understanding the meaning, or the text itself. Since the text is the means to theothers, and since Gracia's focus is on interpretation, he takes "revelation" to primarily refer to the text whichconveys the meaning. In his words: "A divine revelation is a text through which members of a religion believe adivinity they worship intends to cause them to understand significant facts about which they might otherwise beignorant" (p. 26). A text, according to Gracia, is "a group of entities, used as signs, selected, arranged, and intended by an authorto cause certain specific acts of understanding in an audience in a certain context" (p. 18). This definition includessuch obvious cases as the Koran, but also less obvious cases like a burning bush. There...
