When history becomes story

<p>     I am watching a documentary on Cleopatra.  Specifically on how an international group of archaeologists have rediscovered her royal islands in Egypt's harbor after being submerged there for over two thousand years.  It is one of the most significant historical discoveries of all time.  What makes Cleopatra and her story, rather her history so interesting to me is because it could easily be fiction.  Just perusing the highlights it sounds like its made up.  For example, female Pharaoh seduces Julius Caesar, when he gets assassinated she seduces Marc Antony and fights against the might of Octavius and all of Rome.  When her forces are defeated in the biggest and bloodiest sea battle in history, both her and Marc Antony commit suicide.  Her by Egyptian tradition of Asp  bite.  </p></p>
 <p>    Just glancing at it it sounds like its made up doesn't it?  But it isn't.  I bring this up because her story is so intricate, so interesting and so involved, and frankly, so often told that we tend to forget that it's actually history, and not just some story made up by Hollywood.  Those amazing things actually happened, Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony actually existed, I can go to Egypt and see things that they saw, touch things that they touched, I can connect with them even after two thousand years.</p></p> 
  <p>   I want to compare Cleopatra to another figure, Jesus Christ.  Also from about two thousand years in the past, and whose story has also been made into countless movies.  Unlike Cleopatra however, Jesus never existed.  I know that that's big talk but hear me out.  There is not one part of Jesus's story that can be verified historically.     None of the authors quoted as providing proof of his existence are contemporary to the time of christ.   I am aware that most historians consider the existence of Jesus a settled< fact, but I'm not sure that that opinion is based on evidence.  It is based more on a deferral to a vocal community that on any evidence dug up out of the earth.  </p></p>
     <p>I often hear that there is just as much historical evidence of Jesus as there is anyone else.  That isnt true.  I can slap on scuba gear and I can touch things that Cleopatra touched.  I can see the room where she seduced and made love to Julius Caesar and then Mark Antony.  I can see the wreckage of the great battle between her forces and Rome.  I can walk where she walked (well swim where she walked).  Her entire life is documented.  We have images of her that were made while she was alive.  There is contemporaneous evidence of her existence.  </p></p>
   <p>  Where was jesus born?  A manger in Bethlehem?  What manger?    What happened in the thirty plus years after his birth but before his death?  I would think that a historical figure who was rumored to be a god, THE god, would leave more of a trace.  Look again at Cleopatra, all Egyptian Pharaohs were also considered to be re-incarnations of the gods, In her case it was Isis.   As living embodiments of the divine, every move they made and every word they said was meticulously documented.  You would think that the coming of the Christian messiah would be similarly documented.  I mean as far as the christian religion goes, there is no more significant event.  This was their god come to earth was it not?  There were witnesses to the birth, why then did not those witnesses stay with Jesus and document his life?  Like I said, this was God wasn't it?  Why is there such a dearth of information on the life of God?  He is born, disappears for thirty plus years and then dies.  While other human made gods from the same era can't take a dump without someone chiseling it into stone for antiquity.   </p></p>
     <p>I find it ironic that we often forget to realize that larger than life people like Cleopatra and Julius Caesar were real, and the events surrounding their lives actually happened.  The story has been told so often and become so familiar that it becomes just that, a story, not history.  While on the other had, the story of Jesus, has, due to its status as religion, become history.  The deference we give to the myth of jesus has enabled it to assume a place in history despite a near total lack of evidence.  I cannot go and touch the things that jesus touched in the way I can with Cleopatra.  There is no contemporaneous evidence for Jesus.  There are no documents that mention him from the time he was supposed to live.  For someone supposed to be god, the most important figure of a religion, this is damning is it not?  </p></p>
     <p>We pay to much attention to myth, and not enough to historical fact.  Cleopatra was real, and the events surrounding her death changed the way the entire world worked.  the circumstances that resulted from her defeat and death changed the course of history and effect us to this day.  Even despite all that most people dismiss Cleopatra as a figure in a story and fail to realize how significant her life really was.  </p></p>
   <p>  Jesus on the other hand, left no meaningful mark on history, and no evidence of his life exists outside of the bible, and the bible is not a historical document.  Yet his existence is held as an undisputed fact.  Why is this?  It is simply because religion demands deference and acceptance, and we give it for no reason at all.  The story of Cleopatra, to me, is so interesting, and so compelling because it is also history, because it actually happened.  the story of Jesus would be similarly compelling to me if it actually happened, but it did not.  I'm not telling people to not believe in Jesus, just that they know that they are in fact 'believing' in him, not accepting his existence as fact.  There is a big difference between the two.