Oldest Statement of Christian Faith (Jesus is God) Found In Israeli Prison

“Jesus is God.” An inscription declaring this to be a reality, the earliest and oldest written expression of the Christian faith, has been deemed ‘the greatest discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls’ by at least one religious scholar.

Dated to 1,800 years ago, the inscription was uncovered by an inmate at Megiddo prison in Israel, when he was digging beneath his cell floor (there is no word as to whether this was an escape attempt). What was discovered was writing in ancient Greek on a mosaic, with a phrase that translates to, “The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”

Akeptous was likely an elite woman and important member of her community who played a key role in the church by donating a table for communion – a key tenet of Christian worship. Aside from Akeptous, the mosaic’s inscription also advised the reader to ‘remember Primilla and Cyriaca and Dorothea, and lastly, Chreste.’

• More than Battles of Armageddon: The Forgotten Story of Megiddo, An Archaeological Paradise
• “I Am the Lord God Dionysus”: Parallels Between Yahweh and Dionysus

Clearly, women played an active role in the organization and spread of the faith in the early first millennium BC.