The find
In 2005, while a new wing was being built at Megiddo prison, excavation exposed a mosaic floor in a building identified as an early Christian prayer hall.
The inscriptions
The floor carries Greek inscriptions. One dedicates a table to Christ with the words:
Θεῷ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ: “to God Jesus Christ”
Beside it are a dedication by a Roman officer named Gaianus and the names of women who funded the work. Fish, an early Christian symbol, appear in the decoration.
Date
The excavators date the mosaic by its pottery, coins and style to about AD 230, before Constantine. Some scholars have argued for a later date.
What it establishes
A Christian meeting place with an explicitly christological inscription in the third century, and a community in the Jezreel Valley with sufficient means to commission mosaic work. The inscription addresses Christ as God, which is a datum for the history of Christology.
Open questions
The floor was laid about two centuries after Jesus’s ministry, so it does not speak to the events of his life. What it records, in its own words, is a third-century community’s worship of Jesus Christ as God.
Where it is now
The floor was lifted and conserved. It was shown at the Museum of the Bible in Washington in 2024-2025 under an agreement with the Israel Antiquities Authority.
