If this can be corroborated, it takes us all the way back to the first century, and therefore to those who were contemporaries of Peter and Paul.

Archaeologists in Jordan have discovered a cave underneath one of the world's oldest churches and say it may have been an even more ancient site of Christian worship. But outside experts expressed caution about the claim.

Archaeologist Abdel-Qader al-Housan, head of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, said this week that the cave was unearthed in the northern Jordanian city of Rihab after three months of excavation and shows evidence of early Christian rituals.

The cave is under St. George's Church, which some believe was built in the year 230, though the date is widely disputed. That would make it one of the oldest churches in the world, along with one unearthed in the Jordanian southern port of Aqaba in 1998 and another in Israel discovered in 2005.

Al-Housan said there was evidence that the underground cave was used as a church by 70 disciples of Jesus in the first century after Christ's death, which would make it the oldest Christian site of worship in the world.

He described a circular worship area with stone seats separated from a living area that had a long tunnel leading to a source of water. He said the early Christians hid there from persecution.

A mosaic inscription on the floor of the later church of St. George above refers to "the 70 beloved by God and the divine" who founded the worship there.

There are those who doubt this find -- and I am not ready to support the claim myself. It is virtually inconceivable that the mosaics would date to the first century (the 70 likely would have been a group fleeing from either the persecution of early Christians described in Acts or the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD -- not individuals with the wealth and/or skills to create the mosaics), and so it is more likely that the inscription refers to a legend in the community about the historical use of the cave. Absent some more solid archaeological evidence, I think it is impossible to sustain the claim it makes as fact.

Posted by: Greg at 11:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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