Nov

Old-Skool Church found under Prison in Israel

Italian academics are being sent to an Israeli prison without trial, and without bail. Of course – the reason is that they are going to study the possible location of the earliest Christian church ever discovered – dating back to the somewhere in the 200s – which just happens to be inside the walls of a high-security prison built to house Palestinians.

The possibility of finding a 3rd century Christian church is very significant. Those of us who have sat through hours, and hours, and hours of Art History 201 – taught by Dr Hamilton – know very well that the first Christian churches (that we now know of) came in the Byzantine era following the legalization and establishment of the Christian religion. Since I took that class while I was still using my laptop to take notes, let me paste some of what I wrote on the subject:

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(those who have taken notes on a laptop in a dark classroom when tired will understand)
Well – Dr Hamilton will soon have to revise his slideshow, take another field trip – and come up with some dry humor to describe this newest site found in Israel.
Why they are building prisons on top of archaeological sites, I don’t know – but since the entire country of Israel is one big archaeological site, I’ll let this one slide.

At this point, they know they have discovered a big mosaic that definitely talks about Christ. There is some debate over what it exactly is – or when it dates to.
Some of the inscriptions I find kind of funny. The largest one reads:

Gaianos, also called Porphyrio, centurion, our brother, having sought honor with his own money, has made this mosaic. Brouti has carried out the work.

What do you think? I’m of the opinion that Brouti was a little ticked about having to do the grunt work and threw his name up there without asking.

Or how about:

The God-loving Aketous has offered this table to the God Jesus Christ, as a memorial.

Sure, this may be a 3rd century Christian church, but they’ve already got the endorsement ideas of the 20th century going on. Imagine if modern churches were like that?