of fiction); (2) others view the book’s characters and the book’s events as having a historical basis (they believe the book is a record of historical facts); and (3) others view the book’s characters and the book’s events as having a historical basis but they believe that the author exercised the poetic liberty of embellishing and reordering the historical facts to make the message of his book more effective (they believe the book is a poetical record of historical facts). The third view is today’s
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