I am trying to determine whether the historical claims made in the Bible are considered revelations. Specifically, claims such as those that lead people to assert the earth is 6000 or so years old and that it was once covered to the mountaintops by water.
If they are not revelations, then they can be studied by forensic methods, and forensic methodologies are the appropriate approach.
There are, of course, uncountable instances where people have asserted that something has been revealed to them. There are millions of members of respectable denominations in the United States that have their origin in rather specific revelations.
I am just trying to understand when a statement qualifies as a revelation and when it does not.
We could say fairly closely which brand of heresy is being touted with that and other assertions commonly seen nearly everywhere, but it wouldn't move anybody closer to or farther from where they need to be.