By Michael Ashcraft –
It was an unsettling argument. A Muslim saunters up to a Christian at Speaker’s Corner in London to challenge his beliefs: Did you know the early Christians didn’t believe Jesus was God? That idea, he says, was forced on Christians by the polytheistic Romans at the Council of Nicaea at 325 AD – about 325 years too late.
A cursory review online seems to confirm the Muslim’s argument. The troubled Christian begins to wonder if Islam might be true.
Well, their argument just vaporized, thanks to archaeology. In 2005, a mosaic was unearthed in Megiddo that calls Jesus Christ God. It’s dated c. 230 AD. By shaving 100 years off the Muslim argument, we get the idea that Christians always held Jesus to be God.
“This is the earliest evidence that the Christians worship Jesus as God in terms of archaeology. It’s tangible. It’s something we can touch, something we can see,” says Dr. Edward Dalcour. “It’s so exciting because it’s so clear.”
Muslims are not the only ones to wish away the deity of Christ: there’s Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unitarians and even Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code.
They all just went up in smoke – thanks to renovations in a prison in Megiddo, Israel. As prisoners removed the floor for remodeling, they discovered the huge mosaic that was incredibly well preserved, suggesting that the place was a prayer house, Dalcour says.
Along with Christian imagery and messages, the fateful inscription says: “The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ (ΘΩ ΙΥ ΧΩ with the “overbar” that signifies God, Dalcour says) as a memorial.”
Of course, there’s also Pliny the Younger – not a Christian by any means – who wrote to Emperor Trajan about Christians. He reported that Christians sing hymns to Christ as God.
Also, Philippians 2:6-11 conflates Jesus with Yahweh by citing Isaiah 45:23.
Ph. 2:10: At the name of Jesus every knee will bow in Heaven and on Earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Isa. 45:22-23: Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; truth has gone from my mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow to me, every tongue will swear allegiance.
Really, the Megiddo Mosaic is an archaeological find of religion-shattering implications.
“When we look at this Megiddo floor, it adds indisputable evidence to the vast amount of evidence that we already had for deity of Christ,” Dalcour says.
Michael Ashcraft is the editor-in-chief of Pilgrim Dispatch.
