1,500-year-old inscription saying “Christ, born of Mary” discovered in Israel

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Archaeologists in northern Israel have unearthed a 1,500-year-old carved inscription which says “Christ, born of Mary,” in Greek, Christian Today reports. The inscription was part of a lintel in the doorway of a Byzantine church.

The doorway and its inscription were discovered during an excavation conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in the village of et-Taiyiba in the Jezreel Valley prior to the construction of a new road, Christian Today said.

Experts have dated the doorway back to the late fifth century BC, stating that the inscription was repurposed in a beautiful building from the Byzantine or Early Islamic period, Christian Today reports.

The full text of the inscription reads: “Christ born of Mary. This work of the most God-fearing and pious bishop [Theodo]sius and the miserable Th[omas] was built from the foundation – -. Whoever enters should pray for them.” Theodisius was the founder of the church and the regional archbishop for Bet She’an, the to which et-Taiyiba belonged, Christian Today said.

The inscription was elucidated by Dr Leah Di-Segni, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In a statement about the text, Di-Segni said: “The inscription greets those who enter and blesses them. It is therefore clear that the building is a church, and not a monastery: churches greeted believers at their entrance, while monasteries tended not to do this.”

Dr. Walid Atrash of the Israel Antiquities Authority added in a separate statement: “This is the first evidence of the Byzantine church’s existence in the village of et-Taiyiba and it adds to other finds attesting to the activities of Christians who lived in the region.”

Latest Worthy News