Historicity of Jesus

[Artimas]

Don’t follow religion, have nothing for me.

[felix_dakat]

@Artimas

The evidence is there for anybody to look at. But, like all history, it’s a matter of more or less. So, people make up their own minds for their own reasons. The existential or religious import of making a decision about Christ places the historicity of Jesus under a scrutiny that few putative historical facts are ever subjected to. The fact the Augustus Caesar was supposed to be the Son of God born of a virgin, seldom provokes people to question his historical existence.

What evidence? Where

Within a century of the traditional date of Jesus’s death, he is referred to on three occasions by Roman authors. None of them wrote, as we have seen, during Jesus’s lifetime or even in the first Christian century. They were all writing about eighty to eighty-five years after the traditional date of his death.

The first surviving reference to Jesus by a non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind appears in the writings of Pliny the Younger, the governor of the Roman province of Bithynia-Pontus in Asia Minor (now Turkey). Pliny is called “the Younger” in order to differentiate him from his even more famous uncle, Pliny “the Elder,” who is best known to history not as a Roman administrator but as a natural scientist who wrote many scientific tomes that still survive. Pliny the Elder was inveterately curious, as scientists tend to be, and when he learned that Mount Vesuvius was erupting in 79 CE, he decided to get as close as he could in order to investigate. Unfortunately, his ship got too close, and he perished in the fumes. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, also observed the eruption, but from a considerable distance, and wrote about it in one of his surviving works.

Among scholars of early Christianity, the younger Pliny is best known for a series of letters that he wrote later in life to the Roman emperor, Trajan, seeking advice for governing his province. In particular, letter number 10 from the year 112 CE is important, as it is the one place in which Pliny appears to mention the existence of Jesus. The letter is not about Jesus himself; it is dealing with a political problem. In Pliny’s province a law had been passed making it illegal for people to gather together in social groups. This may seem like an odd law, but it had a very practical function. The Roman authorities were afraid that people in that locale might band together for political reasons and that this might lead to armed uprisings. But by forbidding groups from coming together for any purpose whatsoever , the Romans had created a problem, though not one you might expect. The law applied to every social group, including fire brigades. As a result, there were no effective measures in Pliny’s province to deal with the outbreak of fires, and so villages were burning.

In his letter 10 to the emperor Pliny discusses the fire problem, and in that context he mentions another group that was illegally gathering together. As it turns out, it was the local community of Christians. 11

Pliny learned from reliable sources that the Christians (illegally) gathered together in the early morning. He provides us with some important information about the group: they included people from a variety of socioeconomic levels, and they ate meals together of common food. Pliny may tell the emperor this because of rumors, which we hear from other later sources, that Christians committed cannibalism. (They did, after all, eat the flesh of the Son of God and drink his blood.) Moreover, Pliny informs the emperor, the Christians “sing hymns to Christ as to a god.”

That is all he says about Jesus: the Christians worshipped him by singing to him. He does not, as you can see, even call him Jesus but instead uses his most common epithet, Christ. Whether Pliny knew the man’s actual name is anyone’s guess. One might be tempted to ask as well whether he knew that Christ was (at one time?) a man, but the fact that he indicates that the songs were offered to Christ “as to a god” suggests that Christ was, of course, something else. This reference is obviously not much to go on. But it does tell us that there were Christians worshipping someone named Christ in the early second century in the region of Asia Minor. We already knew this, of course, from other (Christian) sources…"

Ehrman, Bart D. (2012-03-20). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (pp. 50-52). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

That’s only the beginning, I can supply a lot more evidence from this source if your interested. Hopefully I won’t get called on it for copyright infringement.

[Artimas]

Do you know how to read? It’s in the first fucking sentence or two of what you posted… For real, learn to read. Not evidence. HEARSAY. Do you know what that word means?

Within a century of the traditional date of Jesus’s death, he is referred to on three occasions by Roman authors. None of them wrote, as we have seen, during Jesus’s lifetime or even in the first Christian century. They were all writing about eighty to eighty-five years after the traditional date of his death.

Eighty years + after the death of this being, and you say it’s historical evidence? That’s almost an entire century.

And a Christian source doesn’t count because it is the very thing that is trying to be proven with evidence. If Christianity is a source of evidence then I guess the events in the bible are true as well right? No.

Woah, look at Socrates and Plato dates of existence.

Socrates - 470/469 – 399 BC

Plato - 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BCE

Not 80+ years, yet Socrates is still discussed about not existing. So therefore if Socrates is still discussed as such then so can Jesus Christ.

I don’t give a damn what “scholars” today say about history, because history can easily be manipulated or taken literal when it was metaphorical.

[felix_dakat]

@Artimas

Do you know how to read? It’s in the first fucking sentence or two of what you posted… For real, learn to read. Not evidence. HEARSAY. Do you know what that word means?

Within a century of the traditional date of Jesus’s death, he is referred to on three occasions by Roman authors. None of them wrote, as we have seen, during Jesus’s lifetime or even in the first Christian century. They were all writing about eighty to eighty-five years after the traditional date of his death.

Eighty years + after the death of this being, and you say it’s historical evidence? That’s almost an entire century.

And a Christian source doesn’t count because it is the very thing that is trying to be proven with evidence. If Christianity is a source of evidence then I guess the events in the bible are true as well right? No.

Woah, look at Socrates and Plato dates of existence.

Socrates - 470/469 – 399 BC

Plato - 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BCE

Not 80+ years, yet Socrates is still discussed about not existing. So therefore if Socrates is still discussed as such then so can Jesus Christ.

I don’t give a damn what “scholars” today say about history, because history can easily be manipulated or taken literal when it was metaphorical.

Yup, I know what hearsay is. It is evidence though. I can tell your getting into this. It gets worse before it gets better. So I’ll continue. By the way, Ehrman as a historian is himself almost a kind of hostile witness to the historicity of Jesus, because, like Omar said, he lost his faith studying this stuff and yet, he believes in the historicity of Jesus. Be that as it may, here’s some evidence on the subject:

Even less helpful is a reference found in the writings of the Roman biographer Suetonius, often also cited in discussions of the existence of Jesus. Suetonius is most famous for having produced twelve biographies of Roman emperors. His Lives of the Caesar, written in 115 CE, still makes for interesting reading today. It was, in fact , the basis for Robert Graves’s historical novel, I Claudius (1934), on which the even better-known BBC miniseries of the same name was based. It is in Suetonius’s biography of Claudius, emperor of Rome from 41 to 54 CE, that a second reference to Jesus is sometimes thought to occur. Suetonius indicates that at one point in his reign Claudius deported all the Jews from Rome because of riots that had occurred “at the instigation of Chrestus.” He says nothing more about the man. But a large number of scholars over the years have thought that the situation in Rome is relevant for understanding early Christian history. In this theory, it was Roman Jews who believed that Jesus was the messiah, or Christ (Chrestus), who had stirred up the passions of Jews who did not believe. This led to violent reactions that got out of hand: the riots mentioned by Suetonius. And so Claudius expelled the whole lot of them. The reading of the situation may receive some support from the New Testament book of Acts, which also refers to the incident (18: 2). One problem with this reconstruction of events is that if Suetonius did have some such situation in mind, he misspelled Jesus’s epithet, since Christ in Latin would be Christus, not Chrestus (although this kind of spelling mistake was common). Moreover, since Chrestus itself could be a name, it may well be that there simply was a Jew named Chrestus who caused a disturbance that led to riots in the Jewish community. In any event, even if Suetonius is referring to Jesus by a misspelled epithet, he does not help us much in our quest for non-Christian references to Jesus. Jesus himself would have been dead for some twenty years when these riots in Rome took place, so at best Suetonius would be providing evidence, if he can count for evidence, that there were Christians in Rome during the reign of Claudius . But this could have been the case whether Jesus lived or not, since mythicists would argue that the “myth” of Christ had already been invented by then, as had the supposed life of the made-up figure of Jesus. Ehrman, Bart D. (2012-03-20). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (pp. 53-54). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

[AutSider]

Anybody wanna meet my challenge?

Let’s examine one particular rule I find the most interesting: suspension of physical laws. Is there any event in history that is accepted to have happened which includes such feats? I can’t seem to recall any… yet, I am supposed to accept that people can come to life after death, walk on water, turn water into wine et cetera.

felix dakat and Artimas, did you guys make a distinction between 1) the Jesus of Christianity, son of God, God himself, performer of miracles and 2) A guy named Jesus who claimed divine inspiration and got crucified

As I said, I have no problem (read: I don’t care) about 2), and I don’t think Artimas does either. It’s 1) you should be trying to prove, and I wonder how. Meeting my challenge would be a good start.

[omar]

Hello Felix
Based on what you posted I decided to buy the book, so feel good: you just made them money with your infringement.

[felix_dakat]

@Atheris

Anybody wanna meet my challenge?

Let’s examine one particular rule I find the most interesting: suspension of physical laws. Is there any event in history that is accepted to have happened which includes such feats? I can’t seem to recall any… yet, I am supposed to accept that people can come to life after death, walk on water, turn water into wine et cetera.

felix dakat and Artimas, did you guys make a distinction between 1) the Jesus of Christianity, son of God, God himself, performer of miracles and 2) A guy named Jesus who claimed divine inspiration and got crucified

As I said, I have no problem (read: I don’t care) about 2), and I don’t think Artimas does either. It’s 1) you should be trying to prove, and I wonder how. Meeting my challenge would be a good start.

Like I said above, the fact the Augustus Caesar was supposed to be the Son of God born of a virgin, seldom provokes people to question his historical existence. Jesus is said to have asked, "Whom do men say that I am. So it is today. If you read the gospel accounts, you almost can’t help but interpret them. To me they have never appeared to be simple straight forward chronological eye witness accounts. They actually don’t claim to be. And the chronologies are different in each book. Matthew, Mark and Luke, have core similarities that John lacks.

Now since the advent of Newtonian physics readers began to have a problem with miracles which were supposed to be a violation of natural laws. The decisive point of reading the gospels became whether you could believe that Jesus violated natural laws or not. The test of faith was whether you could believe the unbelievable. And so, this is basically the test you are posing here.

The Gospels are a bit like projective tests, you know, like the Rorschach inkblot test. What you see says as much about you as it does about the text. Now the first thing I would say about history, any history, and particularly the more remote the history is from my time and place, is that there is more about it that I don’t know than what I do. In the case of the Gospels this is most certainly the case beginning with the fact that I don’t know who wrote the books. Everything that can be supposed about the authors must be read from the books themselves which means that they can be no more than suppositions.

So, on to the miracles, cuz you have said that is a sticking point for you. Suffice it to say, there are different ways to to interpret them. But, each way that they are interpreted is also a presupposition of the reader. Now the various churches have traditions of interpretation which the members subscribe to. These traditions are not what Internet debaters sometimes think. For example the major Roman Catholic theologian Augustine of Hippo taught an allegorical interpretation of miracles. So, although he was sainted by the church, he might not pass your little test and certainly, he is rarely doubted to be a “true Believer” in The Christian Faith.

But, perhaps I’ve said more than you wish to hear. So, I make my conclusion short: I don’t know. For me, your distinction represents a false dilemma as in either claim X is true or claim Y is true, when in fact, the possibilities are endless, and there is no easy answer in sight.

[Artimas]

No, it’s not evidence. If you think hearsay and writings are hard historical evidence then you’re wrong. In your word and view do you know how much is real or has credibility of being real? The Jabberwocky must be real too since he’s written about. Writings aren’t historical evidence unless they fit into the timeline and there is sufficient amount of it fitting that makes logical reasonable sense.

I am sorry but writings of 3 people and the Christianity ‘recordings’ themselves do not count as historical evidence. There are a few points I can make to why they aren’t.

For one, it’s recorded 80+ years after Jesus is already dead.

A historical figure of such great divinity and influence would have been recorded instantly. You know, writing as it happened? For example the writings and poems/songs of when the Revolutionary war happened? You think they diddle daddle around about recording history? No, they didn’t.

There would be more writings than a few as well. No one can tell me otherwise when it’s a person who does miracles and is divine.

It only fits a small bit into the timeline. You people don’t even know where he went or what he did when he disappeared for years. Then he comes back with supposed magic powers and has a flock now? Sounds like a movie or kids story. Only children should be gullible enough to believe such nonsense. But I suppose that’s humanity for you, believing whatever they hear because they wish it so with their own subjective tastes or fears.

That’s all you religious folk do is link books EVERY time someone questions the evidence of Jesus or your god and it’s history. How about linking me to a site with Jesus’ bones or actual hard evidence? You know, historical physical evidence, not more words? If I wanted your word of it i’d of bought into it already. Words aren’t sufficient enough. You can tell me this and that but it doesn’t matter, because I am telling you this and that as well. Except what I am saying is reasonable based on what is written.

[Artimas]

@felix dakat

@Atheris

Anybody wanna meet my challenge?

Let’s examine one particular rule I find the most interesting: suspension of physical laws. Is there any event in history that is accepted to have happened which includes such feats? I can’t seem to recall any… yet, I am supposed to accept that people can come to life after death, walk on water, turn water into wine et cetera.

felix dakat and Artimas, did you guys make a distinction between 1) the Jesus of Christianity, son of God, God himself, performer of miracles and 2) A guy named Jesus who claimed divine inspiration and got crucified

As I said, I have no problem (read: I don’t care) about 2), and I don’t think Artimas does either. It’s 1) you should be trying to prove, and I wonder how. Meeting my challenge would be a good start.

Like I said above, the fact the Augustus Caesar was supposed to be the Son of God born of a virgin, seldom provokes people to question his historical existence. Jesus is said to have asked, "Whom do men say that I am. So it is today. If you read the gospel accounts, you almost can’t help but interpret them. To me they have never appeared to be simple straight forward chronological eye witness accounts. They actually don’t claim to be. And the chronologies are different in each book. Matthew, Mark and Luke, have core similarities that John lacks.

Now since the advent of Newtonian physics readers began to have a problem with miracles which were supposed to be a violation of natural laws. The decisive point of reading the gospels became whether you could believe that Jesus violated natural laws or not. The test of faith was whether you could believe the unbelievable. And so, this is basically the test you are posing here.

The Gospels are a bit like projective tests, you know, like the Rorschach inkblot test. What you see says as much about you as it does about the text. Now the first thing I would say about history, any history, and particularly the more remote the history is from my time and place, is that there is more about it that I don’t know than what I do. In the case of the Gospels this is most certainly the case beginning with the fact that I don’t know who wrote the books. Everything that can be supposed about the authors must be read from the books themselves which means that they can be no more than suppositions.

So, on to the miracles, cuz you have said that is a sticking point for you. Suffice it to say, there are different ways to to interpret them. But, each way that they are interpreted is also a presupposition of the reader. Now the various churches have traditions of interpretation which the members subscribe to. These traditions are not what Internet debaters sometimes think. For example the major Roman Catholic theologian Augustine of Hippo taught an allegorical interpretation of miracles. So, although he was sainted by the church, he might not pass your little test and certainly, he is rarely doubted to be a “true Believer” in The Christian Faith.

But, perhaps I’ve said more than you wish to hear. So, I make my conclusion short: I don’t know. For me, your distinction represents a false dilemma as in either claim X is true or claim Y is true, when in fact, the possibilities are endless, and there is no easy answer in sight.

Hey guess what… We can take a visit to Caesar Augustus’ grave. Let’s dig and see if his bones are there. That’s historical physical evidence. Can we do such with a Miracle providing jesus christ? No, we can’t.

Buried: Mausoleum of Augustus, Rome, Italy

• Caesar

We also have Caesar’s family and heritage recorded, we have much more data on this being. Not your finger waggling magic man.

[Uccisore]

@Artimas

I don’t need to convince others. Yeah, I don’t know what I am talking about. Which is why you all claim Jesus existed as a physical man yet have no historical evidence what so ever right? Tacitus and the writings of the other two are not historical evidence, that’s hearsay.

Hearsay is evidence. It's just not evidence (usually) admissable in an American court of law, because the person quoted can't be cross-examined and wasn't sworn in. A witness who can't be cross-examined is inadmissable because of the mechanics of American jurisprudence, it has fuck all to do with whether or not something makes good historical evidence.  

Yes, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

[Lev_Muishkin]

@Uccisore

@Artimas

I don’t need to convince others. Yeah, I don’t know what I am talking about. Which is why you all claim Jesus existed as a physical man yet have no historical evidence what so ever right? Tacitus and the writings of the other two are not historical evidence, that’s hearsay.

Hearsay is evidence. It's just not evidence (usually) admissable in an American court of law, because the person quoted can't be cross-examined and wasn't sworn in. A witness who can't be cross-examined is inadmissable because of the mechanics of American jurisprudence, it has fuck all to do with whether or not something makes good historical evidence.  

Yes, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Actually it does matter - a lot.

History is full of bullshit, and the usual reason for this is a reliance on secondary, rather than primary sources.

[Uccisore]

@Lev Muishkin

@Uccisore

@Artimas

I don’t need to convince others. Yeah, I don’t know what I am talking about. Which is why you all claim Jesus existed as a physical man yet have no historical evidence what so ever right? Tacitus and the writings of the other two are not historical evidence, that’s hearsay.

Hearsay is evidence. It's just not evidence (usually) admissable in an American court of law, because the person quoted can't be cross-examined and wasn't sworn in. A witness who can't be cross-examined is inadmissable because of the mechanics of American jurisprudence, it has fuck all to do with whether or not something makes good historical evidence.  

Yes, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Actually it does matter - a lot.

History is full of bullshit, and the usual reason for this is a reliance on secondary, rather than primary sources.

Of course primary sources are preferable, but that doesn’t mean the value of secondary sources is zero.
But anyway hearsay has nothing to do with whether or not something is a primary or secondary source. If you write about something you directly experienced or did, and die, and I find what you wrote, that’s hearsay because I can’t ask you follow up questions or make you swear an oath that you aren’t lying. That’s why I’m saying Artimas doesn’t know what he’s on about- he either doesn’t know what hearsay is and is just tossing the word around, or he doesn’t understand that it’s negative value is a function of courtroom mechanics and little else, or something.

[Lev_Muishkin]

@felix dakat

It’s a cute video. But it’s a straw-man argument because it misrepresents Christianity and then refutes the misrepresentation.

How disingenuous of you. In fact, what you say is worse than a straw-man. It what philosophers call empty foot stamping.

The representation of Christianity is a standard one, a common enough one. It might not address your peculiar version, but it is a good one nonetheless.

If you want to be taken seriously you might have to watch the whole video and then state in detail exactly what you don’t like about its representation of Christianity, other wise you are just looking like a child stamping their foot complaining about her ice-cream.

[Artimas]

@Uccisore

@Artimas

I don’t need to convince others. Yeah, I don’t know what I am talking about. Which is why you all claim Jesus existed as a physical man yet have no historical evidence what so ever right? Tacitus and the writings of the other two are not historical evidence, that’s hearsay.

Hearsay is evidence. It's just not evidence (usually) admissable in an American court of law, because the person quoted can't be cross-examined and wasn't sworn in. A witness who can't be cross-examined is inadmissable because of the mechanics of American jurisprudence, it has fuck all to do with whether or not something makes good historical evidence.  

Yes, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Yeah, it’s evidence which is why Socrates to this day is still debated of existing as well right? Who has much more hearsay “evidence” of existing, not only that but credibility with shaping western philosophies. Philosophy, an already existing factor.

Stories and writings aren’t evidence. They’re words, in hopes of being believed or accepted. You religious folk are so contradictory… “I don’t trust man, I trust god!” *Goes and trusts the writings of Jesus’ existence through mans writing and interpretation" Learn to not cherry pick, such as every other religious fan boy.

[Artimas]

Of course primary sources are preferable, but that doesn’t mean the value of secondary sources is zero.
But anyway hearsay has nothing to do with whether or not something is a primary or secondary source. If you write about something you directly experienced or did, and die, and I find what you wrote, that’s hearsay because I can’t ask you follow up questions or make you swear an oath that you aren’t lying. That’s why I’m saying Artimas doesn’t know what he’s on about- he either doesn’t know what hearsay is and is just tossing the word around, or he doesn’t understand that it’s negative value is a function of courtroom mechanics and little else, or something.

I know exactly what hearsay is, both definitions. It is you who don’t know since you claim that the definition being used in this discussion has to do with the ‘court of law.’ which it doesn’t. This comes as common sense to me, I look it up just to show how wrong you are.

hear·say
ˈhirˌsā/
noun
noun: hearsay
information received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiate; rumor.
“according to hearsay, Bob had managed to break his arm”
synonyms: rumor, gossip, tittle-tattle, idle talk; More
LAW
the report of another person’s words by a witness, usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law.
“everything they had told him would have been ruled out as hearsay”

Oh look at that, rumor, gossip. Not adequately substantiate. Which means not able to be supported as evidence, due to it being WORDS.

As I said once and will say again. If words count as evidence, then I ride fire breathing dragons every day and train them. It’s true and evident through my speaking.

[Uccisore]

@Artimas

Oh look at that, rumor, gossip. Not adequately substantiate. Which means not able to be supported as evidence, due to it being WORDS.

As I said once and will say again. If words count as evidence, then I ride fire breathing dragons every day and train them. It’s true and evident through my speaking.

Ah, so you meant to say that everything everybody wrote in the past is idle-talk and rumor.

Of course you did.

And this counters my idea that you don’t know what you’re talking about how, exactly?

[Artimas]

Hearsay is. Not documentation of which can be explored to be found as true/evident. For example Augustus Caesar, documentation of him and his ruling, heritage, etc. Where his body is located after death, the grave and what not. Not measly rumor from a few men who bought into a story and idea. Rumor of which cannot even be traced, they tried and failed.

Jesus has no documentation, no grave, hardly fits into the timeline, yet oh so divine and influential to have a measly 3 people record him, 80+ years after dying, even more time after he performed miracles.

Even Socrates has more credibility. Yet still faces discussion of not existing. If Socrates faces the discussion, then so will Jebus Christus.

I don’t need to counter it, you counter yourself by ad hominem. Trying to say I don’t know what I am talking about to weaken my points and credibility.

[felix_dakat]

@Artimas

No, it’s not evidence. If you think hearsay and writings are hard historical evidence then you’re wrong. In your word and view do you know how much is real or has credibility of being real? The Jabberwocky must be real too since he’s written about. Writings aren’t historical evidence unless they fit into the timeline and there is sufficient amount of it fitting that makes logical reasonable sense.

I am sorry but writings of 3 people and the Christianity ‘recordings’ themselves do not count as historical evidence. There are a few points I can make to why they aren’t.

For one, it’s recorded 80+ years after Jesus is already dead.

A historical figure of such great divinity and influence would have been recorded instantly. You know, writing as it happened? For example the writings and poems/songs of when the Revolutionary war happened? You think they diddle daddle around about recording history? No, they didn’t.

There would be more writings than a few as well. No one can tell me otherwise when it’s a person who does miracles and is divine.

It only fits a small bit into the timeline. You people don’t even know where he went or what he did when he disappeared for years. Then he comes back with supposed magic powers and has a flock now? Sounds like a movie or kids story. Only children should be gullible enough to believe such nonsense. But I suppose that’s humanity for you, believing whatever they hear because they wish it so with their own subjective tastes or fears.

That’s all you religious folk do is link books EVERY time someone questions the evidence of Jesus or your god and it’s history. How about linking me to a site with Jesus’ bones or actual hard evidence? You know, historical physical evidence, not more words? If I wanted your word of it i’d of bought into it already. Words aren’t sufficient enough. You can tell me this and that but it doesn’t matter, because I am telling you this and that as well. Except what I am saying is reasonable based on what is written.

Right, there isn’t any physical evidence of Jesus, unless you count putative stuff like the Shroud of Turin. But, there isn’t any physical evidence of Ghengis Kahn either. Have you written him out of your history? In fact, if you base your history on physical evidence of historical personages, how much of it is left? Compared with the majority of professional historians , your map of history is going to look analogously like those maps of the world drawn in Europe before they “discovered” the American. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s your small world after all.

[Uccisore]

@Artimas

Hearsay is. Not documentation of which can be explored to be found as true/evident. For example Augustus Caesar, documentation of him and his ruling, heritage, etc. Where his body is located after death, the grave and what not. Not measly rumor from a few men who bought into a story and idea.

I see. So you’re just making a judgment call based on what you’ve decided you want to believe and what you don’t. I thought you actually meant something specific by ‘hearsay’ not just “Shit I don’t like”.

[phyllo]

Clearly, not everything said or written is fiction. The problem is in determining what is fiction and what is fact.