How do we separate metaphor from fact? When it fits our current convictions?
Was Lazarus a metaphor?
Was changing water into wine a fact?
The claim : " I am the Way the Truth and the Life. No-one comes to the Father except by me " is that boastful vanity, a metaphor, the voice of insanity, or the truth?
Sorry to be a pest.
[How do we separate metaphor from fact? When it fits our current convictions?]
I don't have a better answer than that.
I just make my best "educated guess" and try not to worry too much. :^)