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Crossing the Holy Land

New church discoveries from the Biblical world

By Dorothy Resig

A few years ago the archaeological world, not to mention the popular press, was abuzz with news that an early Christian church had been discovered on the grounds of an Israeli prison at Megiddo. As BAR reported in an article by archaeologist Vassilios Tzaferis, the structure featured mosaics with Christian symbols such as fish and, most exciting, a dedicatory inscription “to God Jesus Christ.”a Excavator Yotam Tepper of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Hebrew University paleographer Leah Di Segni dated the building to around 230 A.D., making it one of the earliest, if not the earliest, known churches and […]

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Footnotes

1.

Vassilios Tzaferis, “Inscribed ‘To God Jesus Christ,’” BAR 33:02.

2.

See Katharine Eugenia Jones, “Expeditions,” BAR 25:01.

3.

For more on the development of the Biblical canon, see Roy W. Hoover, “How the Books of the New Testament Were Chosen,” Bible Review 09:02.

4.

See “Revolts, Robbers and Rumors,” sidebar to “Egypt’s Chief Archaeologist Defends His Rights (and Wrongs),” BAR 37:03.

Endnotes

1.

The story of the miraculous discovery of Zechariah’s relics is told by fifth-century church historian Sozomen in his Historia Ecclesiastica 9.17.

2.

Strabo, Geographica 12.8.20.