Exploring the Megiddo Mosaic Inscription

Welcome to the One God Report podcast. This is Bill Schlegel. The title of this episode is called the Megiddo or Legio Mosaic Floor Inscription, God with a capital G or God with a small g, Jesus Christ. If you are listening to this on a podcast, you may want to hear or see this episode on the Bill Schlegel YouTube channel because I've got a number of pictures and maps that will help illustrate what this inscription is all about. This is an exciting Greek inscription dating to about 230 AD which mentions God, Jesus, and Christ. It is from a mosaic floor found in the land of Israel near the site of ancient Megiddo at the time. place was called Ligio. It was the station or town for the 6th Roman Legion in the land of Israel at the time. That is some 200 years after Jesus'time. Let's first take a look at the location of Megiddo. It's in the north-central part of the land of Israel. You can see it just sits overlooking the wide Jezreel Valley plain. It's a strategic location. because it is at a crossroad of roads coming up from the coast, like from Egypt, and through the foothills of Mount Carmel, a nice valley pass there. And Megiddo sits as a sentinel guarding that pass. And from there, the Jezreel Valley is a kind of hub from which routes come and go in and out of the land of Israel. Therefore, it's a very strategic point. It's been important from Canaanite times, Israelite times, and that's why the Romans placed a legion there at the time of the Mosaic floor. Here's a video showing the area. You can see the foothills of Mount Carmel in front of us and the modern road. going through that pass that I mentioned, that valley pass that connects to the coastal plain. It was the most convenient way to pass through the Mount Kama Range. And as we zoom in a little closer, you can see the wide Jezreel Valley Plain in the front. And as we get even closer, the left-hand side of the video is the modern village of Megiddo and the ancient Old Testament Canaanite-Israelite-Assyrian period ruins. And in the right central part of the screen, just near the road, is a modern prison. And it's on the grounds of this prison that this Roman period building with the inscription was found. Let's take another look at all of these sites here. Starting on the left hand side, you can see the ancient Tel Megiddo, the Old Testament site. And note again the wide Jezreel Valley plain. And in the horizon is the town of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. And you can see Mount Tabor where Deborah and Barak gathered the Israelites in their battle against the Canaanites. And the Hill of Moreh where the Philistines were at the foot of when Saul battled. All of these biblical events happened because of this geographical, political importance of the Jezreel Valley. And then if we look down to the area where the modern prison is, there was a Jewish village. It was actually kind of a combination of towns and villages right in the area. There was a Jewish village called Kfar Othnai, and the Romans called it Ligio, because they stationed the Roman legion here. Again, this location sits like a sentinel guarding that road toward the coastal plain. And the Romans had another town here eventually called Maximianopolis, as you can see. And it's within the confines of the modern... Israeli prison where they were doing some expansion work that they uncovered the Roman quarters, the living quarters, which the mosaic is in one of the rooms of. Now, the mosaic was discovered in around 2004-2005, but it's been in the news lately because it hasn't been seen publicly yet. And the first place it's going to be displayed is in the Bible Museum in Washington, D.C. So that's why I think it's getting a lot of press coverage at the current time. Here's a quick look at the mosaic inscription we'll be looking at a little bit closer a little bit later on. But you can just note it's got six lines in the Greek language. It dates to around 230 AD, as the Israeli archaeologists have suggested for various reasons. You can see the translation that is given by the epigrapher that helped translate the Greek. They render the inscription as, The God-loving Akeptus has offered the table to God. They use the capital G. I've inserted the small g to God, Jesus Christ, as a memorial. Now we'll get to some of the particulars of the inscription. First, a little more context. is that the place where the inscription was found is really a dwelling area of a number of houses with different rooms and halls, buildings of what looks to be the Roman Legion, probably a mixed group, but definitely some of the soldiers of the Roman Legion were living here. And the archaeologists called the room where the inscriptions were found a prayer hall. You can see it here in one of the corners of larger buildings. In these buildings they found ovens and bread stamps. They were definitely producing bread for the Roman soldiers in these buildings here. So there were dwelling quarters. Here's the reconstruction of the prayer hall where the mosaic was found in one of the sections of a building. And then you can see as well, beyond it, the Roman fortress. Now you've got to keep in mind these excavations, they're limited. There's lots more under the ground that has not been discovered. I'm sure if they were able to continue digging, they'd find lots more of this village of Kfarotnai, which eventually was called Ligio, where all these soldiers were living. Now here's the mosaic inscription in that prayer hall, as it's been called. The mosaic itself is about 16 by 32 feet, or that's 5 by 10 meters. And... There were three inscriptions all together, and they're very interesting. They're all in the Greek language, dating to around 230 AD. The first one they call the Giannis inscription because this man named himself here, and he's a centurion. So he's a Roman centurion. He's an officer. And he's also called a brother. So he looks to be a believer, a Christian. And that's interesting because we do see in the New Testament even, centurions who came to understand that Jesus is the Christ. The one centurion in Capernaum that had given money to build the Jewish synagogue. And then later on, of course, in Caesarea, Cornelius, who Peter came and preached to. So we have Roman centurions in the New Testament who believed that Jesus was the Christ. The centurion Gaius in the... mosaic inscription declares that he himself financed the construction of the mosaic floor. And also the name of the artisan, Brutius, I believe, is mentioned in that section of the inscription. Then the second inscription, the excavators have called the women inscription, and it mentions four women that they may be honored. And then the inscription that is of interest for most of all of us is the so-called... God Jesus Christ inscription. You can see the size of it. It's 26 by 31 and a half inches. That's about one yard. The wide part would be about one yard. And just notice a couple other features of the mosaic too. You can see the bigger part has fancy geometric patterns and a couple of fish, which the excavators suggest one is a tuna and one is a bass. And because the inscription describes a table. that this woman donated. They believed that this was some kind of a prayer hall for a celebration of what they call the Eucharist, which I think is actually a corruption of the Passover in the New Testament. This picture gives another idea of the size of the mosaic floor. Mosaics like this are made from small stone cubes. This one had about 10 different colors that the artisan places in the plaster. It's not painted on the floor or something like that. So you can imagine the work that this takes to originally make and now to carefully uncover and to preserve and to lift out and then to transport it to a place like Washington, D.C. and set it all up again so that it looks like one floor. The excavators believe that it was actually intentionally covered up when the village was abandoned because it's been preserved so well. So here's our important inscription. Let's take a closer look at some of the features. Now, of course, it's in the Greek language. The first line is the first word, has offered. And then we have the name of the person, ekeptos, in the second line. And the third line describes her as the God-loving. And that definite article, the, is a feminine. So we know that ekeptos is a woman. And then the fourth line is the table. So... The god-loving Ikeptos has offered the table. And the word table runs on to the fifth line. The last part of the word table, zan, is on the fifth line. The archaeologists suggest that perhaps the table sat on the pillars, the remnants which you can see in the middle of the floor, and perhaps was associated again with the so-called Eucharist. Another possibility might be that the table sat over the geometric area between the women inscription and the Akeptos inscription, because you can see those two inscriptions sort of face each other. I'm familiar enough with archaeological interpretations that Sooner or later, somebody else is going to come up with another interpretation, somewhat slightly different, totally different, etc. You have to understand that everybody is interpreting the limited evidence that is still remnant. And a lot of that will involve presuppositions and pardon the pun, but none of the interpretations are necessarily set in stone. And then we have the abbreviations for God, Jesus, Christ. And the last word is a... memorial. So the translation of the Greek expert that translated this is, the God-loving Keptus has offered the table to God, Jesus Christ, as a memorial. Now we have to understand there's no punctuation, no commas, no periods, no difference between capital letters and small letters to designate a proper noun or a proper name. Especially in these kinds of inscriptions, they're very short. Sometimes they run together. There's sometimes no space between words, etc. So that translation could be right. And I'm always putting in the small g as a possibility for God before Jesus Christ. And you'll see why as we continue on in the podcast. So let's take a closer look now at the title and name God Jesus Christ. You can see it here in the inscription. All three of the words are abbreviated with the first and last letters. The abbreviation is designated with a line over the top of the words. Actually, two lines over the top of the words. So the first word is God. It's Theo in Greek, so take the first letter, Theta, and the last letter of Theo is an Omega. And having the last letter of the word... is helpful because it can determine how the word functions in the sentence. It's in the dative case. Greek nouns show the case. If the word is the subject of the sentence, or a direct object, or an indirect object, etc. So we can see that this is an indirect object. This God-loving woman offered the table. That's the direct object. And here we have an indirect object to God. So it's an indirect object. But notice one little interesting phenomenon here is there's a bit of extra space between God and the name Jesus. Not only is there a bit of extra space, but you can see that the line above these nomen esachar, these abbreviated names and titles, sacred names, use the fancy Latin terms, nomen esachar means sacred names. There's two lines and one line is just over God and then the next line is over Jesus Christ. And there has been some suggestion by a couple of different scholars that this could be translated as this God-loving woman who gave the table to God, comma, a memorial for Jesus Christ. That is distinguishing between God and Jesus Christ in the inscription. It's a possibility. I don't think that's what it is, but there always seems to be more to these kinds of things than we really know about. And there are always more possibilities. But in any case, we have the word Jesus here. The first and last letters of Jesus could be either the dative or the genitive case. It's ambiguous here. But then the next word, Christ, first and the last letter in Greek of Christ, is clearly in the dative case as it ends in an omega. So the translators, they offered the translation then with a capital G to God, Jesus Christ. Let me make three interesting observations about the inscription. The first one is that the sacred names, these nomina sacra, like we said, they are abbreviated and delineated by two lines placed above. The practice was more typical of later periods to abbreviate the names and put a line over them. But this is one of the, if not the, earliest known examples of this practice. We see it later in Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Another interesting point is that there are earlier literary extra-biblical references to Jesus Christ. Of course, we have Roman authors, and we have the reference to Jesus and Christ and Josephus. But this is the oldest known archaeological find of the name and title Jesus Christ. And one other interesting observation is that this is the oldest known use of this title, God, either with a capital G or small g. There's no differentiation in the Greek. God, Jesus Christ. This is the oldest known use, either in a literary context, right, in a written document, or an archaeological find like this mosaic. And note that God, Jesus Christ, is not a New Testament title for Jesus. You don't find that in the New Testament. So here's the key question then. What kind of God, with a capital G or with a small g, what kind of God was Jesus thought to be in around... AD 230, the time of this Mosaic inscription? Well, there are several possibilities. One of the thoughts on who Jesus was in the cultural choices at that time was that Jesus was actually the same person as the Father. This was popularized by Sibelius, a theologian who was condemned by others as heretical right around this time, 220 AD. And he taught that God was one divine person, one self, who manifested in three distinct modes. God was one substance that could manifest in different ways. So it's a one self God, but he could appear in different modes. The modern terminology for this is modalism or oneness. I know they have some differences. There's variations on this theme. But the key is that God is one, and he's simply making himself known in different ways. And I found that even today, many Trinitarians think in modalistic categories. For instance, we've all heard the analogy, they try to explain the Trinity that water is one substance that can have three different modes, right? It can be a liquid, it can be steam, and it can be ice. So that's three in one. Well, that's not Trinitarianism. This is... Heresy, for the Trinitarians, even though Trinitarians use the analogy, this is modalism or oneness theology. As a Trinitarian in my past, I thought sometimes in oneness categories. I remember explaining to students and to my own kids, trying to describe the Trinity, I would say, well, look at me, I'm a father, and I'm a son, and I'm a teacher, so I'm three in one. But see, that's not Trinitarianism, that's oneness. And I'm not the only one who's guilty of this. I constantly hear even big-name Trinitarian scholars give modalist analogies. So that's one possibility, is that at that time, people were thinking that way, that Jesus was simply like a manifestation, like the God has appeared to us in the form of a human. Okay, but I think that's probably not what the people were thinking that made this mosaic in Megiddo. I think rather, here's what they were thinking. that Jesus was not a mode or manifestation of the one self-God, nor was Jesus one co-equal or co-eternal member of a three-person God. Rather, Jesus was another secondary subordinate derived God, that is a God with a small g, who was brought forth by the one true God called the Father. And I'm going to bring three people to testify to this fact, that at this time, 230 AD, this is the predominant understanding of the type of God that Jesus is. We're going to look at a couple of quotes from Justin Martyr, who lived between 100 and 165. And he was a Platonist. We're going to see, very interestingly, he's from Samaria, very nearby Megiddo. He was a Platonist. He was a Greek philosopher that... assimilated Christianity into his Greek thinking and vice versa. He's going to talk about Jesus being this pre-existent Logos, but subordinate, secondary to God the Father. And then we'll look at Tertullian, the first guy that used the word Trinitas in Latin language. And then we're going to look at Origen of Alexandria, who is living right at the same time. Matter of fact, he's living in Caesarea. at the same time that this mosaic was probably put on the floor. So before we look closer at some of these quote-unquote church fathers'writings, I wanted to bring up a point that I just heard from Dr. Dustin Smith on his biblical unity. podcast. Apparently Sam Tidman of the Transfigured podcast, who knows the history of the church fathers well, brought it to Dustin's attention. I recommend listening to Dr. Smith's Biblical Unitarian podcast description. about the God-Jesus-Christ inscription. There was only one thing I disagreed with him on. I don't think Jesus is called God by Thomas or in Hebrews 1.8. But that's kind of a side issue to who Jesus is in the Megiddo inscription. So here's the geographical point that Dr. Smith made, and it's a very good point. Look how close these two guys, Justin Martyr, we're going to look at, an origin originally from Alexandria, but who lived in Caesarea. Look how close they are connected to this part of the land. You see, here's Megiddo, just on the edge, right where the Megiddo Pass comes into the Jezreel Valley. Same as Ligio, right? The Romans are going to call it Ligio. Well, here's the area of Samaria. So close to where Justin Martyr was from. Now, Justin's a little before this mosaic. But then Origen, who's living right at the time of this mosaic, he actually was living in Caesarea probably when this mosaic was laid down on the ground, when it was made. And you can see where Caesarea is here. It's only about between 15 and 20 miles between Megiddo and Caesarea. And by the way, the most direct route runs right through that Megiddo Pass. So keep that in mind, this geographical... affiliation of both Origen and Justin Martyr to this location. These two are good representatives of how quote-unquote Christians were thinking in this region at the time. So let's look at the kind of God that Justin Martyr thought Jesus to be in the middle of the second century A.D. He's the earliest of the quote-unquote church fathers I'm going to look at. He's writing in about 150 A.D. his work called Dialogue with Trifo the Jew. And in section 56, here's what he says. He's speaking to Trifo the Jew. He says, I shall attempt to persuade you, since you have understood the scriptures, of the truth of what I say, that there is and that there is said to be another God and Lord subject to the maker of all things, who is also called an angel, because he announces to men whatsoever the maker of all things, above whom there is no other God, wishes to announce to them. Okay, so look at the terminology of Justin Martyr. He says that Jesus, he's talking about Jesus, whom he thought was the pre-incarnate Logos, is another God subject to the maker of all things. He's subordinate to the maker of all things. He's not the same being. He's a distinct being who is subject and subordinate to the maker of all things, who is the Father. Okay? So, for Justin Martyr, Jesus was not one co-equal member of a triune God. There's no trinity in Justin Martyr's way of thinking. To him, the God Jesus was another God with a small g. A lesser God and Lord, who also was a messenger or angel for the maker of all things, or God. So, you can see in his mind, there's two distinct beings here. There's the maker of all things, and there's another God, a subordinate God, with a small g. For Justin, the one true God. was the Father, the maker of all things, above whom there is no other God. Jesus was a second, subordinate, distinct being from God, the maker of all things. That's the kind of God that I think is being represented here in the God-Jesus-Christ mosaic of Legio. Let's look at Tertullian. He's a little bit later. He's going right into the time that this mosaic floor was laid. In his writing called Against Praxis, dating to right around 230 AD, Tertullian writes, Believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, that means at the current time, that this one only God has also a son, his word, who proceeded from himself. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation. Unquote. See what he's saying? He's saying that there was a time when the Son didn't exist. The S-O-N, Son, didn't exist under the current dispensation at this time. He has brought forth a son. So the son didn't always exist. The son of God was brought forth by God at a specific time. The son of God had a beginning and was derived from God. Tertullian also writes in Apology, chapter 21, talking about Jesus, He became also the son of God and was begotten when he proceeded forth from him. He proceeds forth from God. He is generated so that he is the Son of God, and he is called deity from unity of substance with the Father. Unquote. So this is Tertullian's way to think of Jesus as God, as a derived God. You might say in the same way that Dionysus could be called a god because Zeus brought him forth. Now, it's interesting that Tertullian was the first one to use the Latin word Trinitas, right? It's the Trinity. And this is brought out by Trinitarians. Like when the deity of Christ... Believers and Trinitarians say, oh, look at the early church fathers. They called Jesus God. He's God. Or the Tertullian used the Trinity. See, the Trinity is already here. the early 3rd century. Well, I hate to break it to you, but Tertullian means something completely different by using the word Trinity than modern Christians do. And he means something completely different by calling Jesus God than modern Christians do. Tertullian did not mean, by the word Trinitas, three co-equal, co-eternal persons in one being. He viewed the Son as having a beginning, being derived from and subordinate to the Father. And by the way, it looks like he believed that the Spirit was derived from and subordinate to the Son. This is not three co-equal, co-eternal persons in one being. It's not the Trinity in the way that was defined in a later century. Listen to him again in his work called Against Hermogenes. He wrote, We should not suppose that there is any other being than God alone who is unbegotten and uncreated. How can it be that anything except the Father should be older, and on this account indeed nobler, than the Son of God, the only begotten and first begotten Word? That which did not require a Maker to give it existence, that's the Father, will be much more elevated in rank than that which had an author to bring it into being. That's the son. So for Tertullian, God the Father brought forth the son. The son is begotten. And begotten is just a fancy English way to say born of, born from. The father alone was unbegotten, uncreated. For Tertullian, you could call the son God because he was derived from. brought forth by the Father. Just to emphasize, to Tertullian, the one only God was the Father. The Trinitas, the Trinity, was not three co-equal, co-eternal members of one God, but was really kind of a triad of three. The Father, the one only God, and then the Son and Spirit, who both had separate beginnings. Almost like, and maybe this is not a fair analogy, but almost like a father a son, and a grandson. All right? They're not all one being. They might have the same substance, but they're not all one being. And the only one who was never born and never derived was the father. And therefore, he was greater than the other two. To Tertullian, there was a time when the son did not exist as a person. The son was not an eternal being in the same sense that God was. God with a capital G. There was also a time when the one only God was not even the Father. Why would he say that? Here's why. Quote, in this way he, God, became the Father by the Son. Unquote. So God only became a Father when he brought forth the Son. So according to Tertullian, God was not even always the Father. Only when he brought forth the Son did he become a Father. To Tertullian, the son was divine or God because he was made of a portion of the substance that the father is composed of. All right, so this is the kind of God that they thought Jesus was when this Ligio Megiddo inscription was being laid down. And now let's take our third testimony, origin of Alexandria. Jesus as a begotten or generated God. Again, early in the 3rd century. He's writing right around the time that this mosaic floor is laid down. And, like we mentioned, At the time, he's the most influential Christian speaker person in the region, living in Caesarea, just 20 miles away. It's not too big of a jump to think that he would be a bit of a hero to these Gentile Christians living in Ligio, including some Roman soldiers. Here's what he writes in his book called On the First Principles. First, he says that there is one God who created and arranged all things, and who, when nothing else existed, called all things into being. This just and good God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, himself gave the law and the prophets and the gospels, being also the God of the apostles and of the Old and New Testaments. Unquote. Okay, so here, Origen calls the one God, the Father. And he's the father of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's the God of the prophets and of the apostles in the New Testament. And then secondly, in his preface, he says, Secondly, that Jesus Christ himself, who came, was born of the Father before all creatures. That, after he had been the servant of the Father in the creation, in the last times, divesting himself, became a man. and was incarnate, although God, either with a capital or small g, and while made a man, remained the God which he was, unquote. Okay, so we can see in Origen's mind, Jesus is born of the Father. He's generated. Apparently, Origen starts to come up with these weird ideas of an eternal generation of the Son. But in any case, we can see that Origen believed that the one God is originally the Father, and that Jesus Christ is subservient, subordinate, derived from the Father. So in the early 3rd century AD, Jesus was not a co-equal, co-eternal member of a tri-personed one God. Jesus Christ was another God with a small g, subordinate to and derived from God, the Father, the maker of all things, being begotten. or brought forth by and from God means that Jesus had a beginning. Jesus could be called God with a small g because God brought him forth from the same essence as himself. So when we read these so-called church fathers of the 2nd and early 3rd centuries AD, to call Jesus God is something entirely different than it is. after the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. The God Jesus Christ of the 2nd and 3rd centuries would be with a small g, subordinate God to the Father because he is derived from, even created by the Father. So we can see that there is a development or evolution in the Godness, the deity of Jesus. It's evident in the early Christian sources. Jesus was not a full-blown member of a co-equal, co-eternal trinity until late in the 4th century. And this is a challenge for Trinitarians. This is a challenge for the folks in the Bible Museum in Washington, D.C. If you're going to bring out this mosaic and say, See, Jesus is God in the beginning of the 3rd century. He's God. Well, you're not being honest with the sources that we have. You're either being dishonest. or you're showing your ignorance. Anybody who's honest with the record of the church fathers at the time will see that the kind of God they thought Jesus was, was a God with a small g. Here's an interesting archaeological find from the same archaeological excavation in nearby living quarters that the To God Jesus Christ inscription was found. The excavators found the... Roman god Lars, depicted here in plural, the Larins Domestica. It means household guardian. So some members of the Roman legion had Lars as their god, their household god, protecting them. Others, the Christians, had another god with a small g protecting them. And this is another interesting fact about the mosaic floor, is that it was a surprise to historians and archaeologists that people could be so expressive of their Christianity at this time. That it was even acceptable among a Roman legion to have your God be Jesus. But it was probably understood in the same sense that just down the street, there were other members of the Roman Legion who had Lars as their protective god. So, let's keep in mind that the title, God, Jesus Christ, you can put a capital or a small g on it, the title God, Jesus Christ, is not in the Bible. God, Jesus Christ, is not a biblical title. We have warnings not to go beyond what is written, especially for Protestants. People should be very careful with and suspicious of a title that is not in the Bible. Just like God the Son is never in the Bible, God, Jesus Christ, is not a title ever in the Bible. How about the biblical Jesus? In the Bible, Jesus the Christ, Christ means the anointed one, Christ or Messiah is not a title for deity. Anywhere in the Bible, Jesus Christ calls himself a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God, John 8, 40. And Peter described Jesus in Acts 2, 22, saying this, Men of Israel, hear these words, Shema Yisrael, Jesus of Nazareth. A man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. But you see how Peter distinguishes between God and the man Christ Jesus? Jesus is not a God-man to Peter or to Jesus himself. He is a man through whom God, someone else, did mighty works, wonders, and signs. Peter says in that same sermon, Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. So God made Jesus Lord and Christ. By the way, it never ever says in the New Testament that God made Jesus God. He made him Lord and Christ. The man Jesus was made Lord and Christ. In the New Testament, Jesus has a God many times. These are only sample verses. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1.3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God of Jesus Christ. The Father of mercies and God of all comfort. The Lord Jesus Christ has a God. The one God. There's only one God. And if the God of the Lord Jesus Christ is the one God, There's no such thing as a trinity. Jesus describes himself as having a God. He says in Revelation, this is the raised from the dead, exalted Jesus. He says, the one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. And Paul, in 1 Timothy 2, 4-5, like I say, these are only samples. Paul writes that God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Okay, so what's the knowledge of the truth? For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Unquote. The one mediator between God and men is not a God-man Christ Jesus. The one mediator between God and men is not the God Christ Jesus. The one mediator between God and men is the man Christ Jesus. So in other words, The title God, Christ, Jesus of the second and third centuries and later was a perversion, a corruption of the biblical Jesus. What Paul and the other apostles warned about happened. In the centuries following Jesus, a different gospel, a different Jesus, a different Christ was formulated in the minds of predominantly Gentiles. But as the apostle Paul made crystal clear, as for us, there is one God, the Father. Please. My Trinitarian friends, my modalist friends, for us believers, as Paul writes, there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. So here are some sources and resources for further examination, if you would. For one, I might recommend the One God Report podcast, numbers 10 and 11, on the YouTube channel, you'll have to search it out, called The Evolution of the Trinity with Dr. Dale Tuggy. And then you can see the other one. Here's a good article by Christopher Rolston on these inscriptions and some of the excavations. Richard Rubenstein on when Jesus became God. The preliminary original report on the excavation at Ligio and the inscription. And a couple others there. The nice little biblical archaeology review article on the inscription as well. And I might add in the recent podcast by Dustin Smith on the Biblical Unitarian podcast. You should be able to see it.

If you are listening to this on a podcast, you may want to hear or see this episode on the Bill Schlegel YouTube channel because I've got a number of pictures and maps that will help illustrate what this inscription is all about. This is an exciting Greek inscription dating to about 230 AD which mentions God, Jesus, and Christ. It is from a mosaic floor found in the land of Israel near the site of ancient Megiddo at the time. place was called Ligio.

It was the station or town for the 6th Roman Legion in the land of Israel at the time. That is some 200 years after Jesus'time. Let's first take a look at the location of Megiddo. It's in the north-central part of the land of Israel.

You can see it just sits overlooking the wide Jezreel Valley plain. It's a strategic location. because it is at a crossroad of roads coming up from the coast, like from Egypt, and through the foothills of Mount Carmel, a nice valley pass there.

And Megiddo sits as a sentinel guarding that pass. And from there, the Jezreel Valley is a kind of hub from which routes come and go in and out of the land of Israel. Therefore, it's a very strategic point.

It's been important from Canaanite times, Israelite times, and that's why the Romans placed a legion there at the time of the Mosaic floor. Here's a video showing the area. You can see the foothills of Mount Carmel in front of us and the modern road.

going through that pass that I mentioned, that valley pass that connects to the coastal plain. It was the most convenient way to pass through the Mount Kama Range. And as we zoom in a little closer, you can see the wide Jezreel Valley Plain in the front.

And as we get even closer, the left-hand side of the video is the modern village of Megiddo and the ancient Old Testament Canaanite-Israelite-Assyrian period ruins. And in the right central part of the screen, just near the road, is a modern prison. And it's on the grounds of this prison that this Roman period building with the inscription was found. Let's take another look at all of these sites here.

Starting on the left hand side, you can see the ancient Tel Megiddo, the Old Testament site. And note again the wide Jezreel Valley plain. And in the horizon is the town of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. And you can see Mount Tabor where Deborah and Barak gathered the Israelites in their battle against the Canaanites. And the Hill of Moreh where the Philistines were at the foot of when Saul battled.

All of these biblical events happened because of this geographical, political importance of the Jezreel Valley. And then if we look down to the area where the modern prison is, there was a Jewish village. It was actually kind of a combination of towns and villages right in the area. There was a Jewish village called Kfar Othnai, and the Romans called it Ligio, because they stationed the Roman legion here. Again, this location sits like a sentinel guarding that road toward the coastal plain.

And the Romans had another town here eventually called Maximianopolis, as you can see. And it's within the confines of the modern... Israeli prison where they were doing some expansion work that they uncovered the Roman quarters, the living quarters, which the mosaic is in one of the rooms of. Now, the mosaic was discovered in around 2004-2005, but it's been in the news lately because it hasn't been seen publicly yet.

And the first place it's going to be displayed is in the Bible Museum in Washington, D.C. So that's why I think it's getting a lot of press coverage at the current time. Here's a quick look at the mosaic inscription we'll be looking at a little bit closer a little bit later on. But you can just note it's got six lines in the Greek language.

It dates to around 230 AD, as the Israeli archaeologists have suggested for various reasons. You can see the translation that is given by the epigrapher that helped translate the Greek. They render the inscription as, The God-loving Akeptus has offered the table to God.

They use the capital G. I've inserted the small g to God, Jesus Christ, as a memorial. Now we'll get to some of the particulars of the inscription.

First, a little more context. is that the place where the inscription was found is really a dwelling area of a number of houses with different rooms and halls, buildings of what looks to be the Roman Legion, probably a mixed group, but definitely some of the soldiers of the Roman Legion were living here. And the archaeologists called the room where the inscriptions were found a prayer hall.

You can see it here in one of the corners of larger buildings. In these buildings they found ovens and bread stamps. They were definitely producing bread for the Roman soldiers in these buildings here. So there were dwelling quarters.

Here's the reconstruction of the prayer hall where the mosaic was found in one of the sections of a building. And then you can see as well, beyond it, the Roman fortress. Now you've got to keep in mind these excavations, they're limited. There's lots more under the ground that has not been discovered. I'm sure if they were able to continue digging, they'd find lots more of this village of Kfarotnai, which eventually was called Ligio, where all these soldiers were living.

Now here's the mosaic inscription in that prayer hall, as it's been called. The mosaic itself is about 16 by 32 feet, or that's 5 by 10 meters. And... There were three inscriptions all together, and they're very interesting.

They're all in the Greek language, dating to around 230 AD. The first one they call the Giannis inscription because this man named himself here, and he's a centurion. So he's a Roman centurion.

He's an officer. And he's also called a brother. So he looks to be a believer, a Christian. And that's interesting because we do see in the New Testament even, centurions who came to understand that Jesus is the Christ.

The one centurion in Capernaum that had given money to build the Jewish synagogue. And then later on, of course, in Caesarea, Cornelius, who Peter came and preached to. So we have Roman centurions in the New Testament who believed that Jesus was the Christ. The centurion Gaius in the... mosaic inscription declares that he himself financed the construction of the mosaic floor.

And also the name of the artisan, Brutius, I believe, is mentioned in that section of the inscription. Then the second inscription, the excavators have called the women inscription, and it mentions four women that they may be honored. And then the inscription that is of interest for most of all of us is the so-called... God Jesus Christ inscription.

You can see the size of it. It's 26 by 31 and a half inches. That's about one yard.

The wide part would be about one yard. And just notice a couple other features of the mosaic too. You can see the bigger part has fancy geometric patterns and a couple of fish, which the excavators suggest one is a tuna and one is a bass.

And because the inscription describes a table. that this woman donated. They believed that this was some kind of a prayer hall for a celebration of what they call the Eucharist, which I think is actually a corruption of the Passover in the New Testament. This picture gives another idea of the size of the mosaic floor. Mosaics like this are made from small stone cubes.

This one had about 10 different colors that the artisan places in the plaster. It's not painted on the floor or something like that. So you can imagine the work that this takes to originally make and now to carefully uncover and to preserve and to lift out and then to transport it to a place like Washington, D.C.

and set it all up again so that it looks like one floor. The excavators believe that it was actually intentionally covered up when the village was abandoned because it's been preserved so well. So here's our important inscription. Let's take a closer look at some of the features. Now, of course, it's in the Greek language.

The first line is the first word, has offered. And then we have the name of the person, ekeptos, in the second line. And the third line describes her as the God-loving.

And that definite article, the, is a feminine. So we know that ekeptos is a woman. And then the fourth line is the table. So... The god-loving Ikeptos has offered the table.

And the word table runs on to the fifth line. The last part of the word table, zan, is on the fifth line. The archaeologists suggest that perhaps the table sat on the pillars, the remnants which you can see in the middle of the floor, and perhaps was associated again with the so-called Eucharist. Another possibility might be that the table sat over the geometric area between the women inscription and the Akeptos inscription, because you can see those two inscriptions sort of face each other.

I'm familiar enough with archaeological interpretations that Sooner or later, somebody else is going to come up with another interpretation, somewhat slightly different, totally different, etc. You have to understand that everybody is interpreting the limited evidence that is still remnant. And a lot of that will involve presuppositions and pardon the pun, but none of the interpretations are necessarily set in stone.

And then we have the abbreviations for God, Jesus, Christ. And the last word is a... memorial. So the translation of the Greek expert that translated this is, the God-loving Keptus has offered the table to God, Jesus Christ, as a memorial.

Now we have to understand there's no punctuation, no commas, no periods, no difference between capital letters and small letters to designate a proper noun or a proper name. Especially in these kinds of inscriptions, they're very short. Sometimes they run together. There's sometimes no space between words, etc. So that translation could be right.

And I'm always putting in the small g as a possibility for God before Jesus Christ. And you'll see why as we continue on in the podcast. So let's take a closer look now at the title and name God Jesus Christ.

You can see it here in the inscription. All three of the words are abbreviated with the first and last letters. The abbreviation is designated with a line over the top of the words. Actually, two lines over the top of the words. So the first word is God.

It's Theo in Greek, so take the first letter, Theta, and the last letter of Theo is an Omega. And having the last letter of the word... is helpful because it can determine how the word functions in the sentence.

It's in the dative case. Greek nouns show the case. If the word is the subject of the sentence, or a direct object, or an indirect object, etc. So we can see that this is an indirect object.

This God-loving woman offered the table. That's the direct object. And here we have an indirect object to God.

So it's an indirect object. But notice one little interesting phenomenon here is there's a bit of extra space between God and the name Jesus. Not only is there a bit of extra space, but you can see that the line above these nomen esachar, these abbreviated names and titles, sacred names, use the fancy Latin terms, nomen esachar means sacred names. There's two lines and one line is just over God and then the next line is over Jesus Christ.

And there has been some suggestion by a couple of different scholars that this could be translated as this God-loving woman who gave the table to God, comma, a memorial for Jesus Christ. That is distinguishing between God and Jesus Christ in the inscription. It's a possibility. I don't think that's what it is, but there always seems to be more to these kinds of things than we really know about. And there are always more possibilities.

But in any case, we have the word Jesus here. The first and last letters of Jesus could be either the dative or the genitive case. It's ambiguous here. But then the next word, Christ, first and the last letter in Greek of Christ, is clearly in the dative case as it ends in an omega.

So the translators, they offered the translation then with a capital G to God, Jesus Christ. Let me make three interesting observations about the inscription. The first one is that the sacred names, these nomina sacra, like we said, they are abbreviated and delineated by two lines placed above. The practice was more typical of later periods to abbreviate the names and put a line over them.

But this is one of the, if not the, earliest known examples of this practice. We see it later in Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Another interesting point is that there are earlier literary extra-biblical references to Jesus Christ. Of course, we have Roman authors, and we have the reference to Jesus and Christ and Josephus. But this is the oldest known archaeological find of the name and title Jesus Christ.

And one other interesting observation is that this is the oldest known use of this title, God, either with a capital G or small g. There's no differentiation in the Greek. God, Jesus Christ.

This is the oldest known use, either in a literary context, right, in a written document, or an archaeological find like this mosaic. And note that God, Jesus Christ, is not a New Testament title for Jesus. You don't find that in the New Testament. So here's the key question then.

What kind of God, with a capital G or with a small g, what kind of God was Jesus thought to be in around... AD 230, the time of this Mosaic inscription? Well, there are several possibilities.

One of the thoughts on who Jesus was in the cultural choices at that time was that Jesus was actually the same person as the Father. This was popularized by Sibelius, a theologian who was condemned by others as heretical right around this time, 220 AD. And he taught that God was one divine person, one self, who manifested in three distinct modes.

God was one substance that could manifest in different ways. So it's a one self God, but he could appear in different modes. The modern terminology for this is modalism or oneness.

I know they have some differences. There's variations on this theme. But the key is that God is one, and he's simply making himself known in different ways.

And I found that even today, many Trinitarians think in modalistic categories. For instance, we've all heard the analogy, they try to explain the Trinity that water is one substance that can have three different modes, right? It can be a liquid, it can be steam, and it can be ice. So that's three in one.

Well, that's not Trinitarianism. This is... Heresy, for the Trinitarians, even though Trinitarians use the analogy, this is modalism or oneness theology. As a Trinitarian in my past, I thought sometimes in oneness categories. I remember explaining to students and to my own kids, trying to describe the Trinity, I would say, well, look at me, I'm a father, and I'm a son, and I'm a teacher, so I'm three in one.

But see, that's not Trinitarianism, that's oneness. And I'm not the only one who's guilty of this. I constantly hear even big-name Trinitarian scholars give modalist analogies. So that's one possibility, is that at that time, people were thinking that way, that Jesus was simply like a manifestation, like the God has appeared to us in the form of a human.

Okay, but I think that's probably not what the people were thinking that made this mosaic in Megiddo. I think rather, here's what they were thinking. that Jesus was not a mode or manifestation of the one self-God, nor was Jesus one co-equal or co-eternal member of a three-person God. Rather, Jesus was another secondary subordinate derived God, that is a God with a small g, who was brought forth by the one true God called the Father.

And I'm going to bring three people to testify to this fact, that at this time, 230 AD, this is the predominant understanding of the type of God that Jesus is. We're going to look at a couple of quotes from Justin Martyr, who lived between 100 and 165. And he was a Platonist. We're going to see, very interestingly, he's from Samaria, very nearby Megiddo.

He was a Platonist. He was a Greek philosopher that... assimilated Christianity into his Greek thinking and vice versa. He's going to talk about Jesus being this pre-existent Logos, but subordinate, secondary to God the Father. And then we'll look at Tertullian, the first guy that used the word Trinitas in Latin language.

And then we're going to look at Origen of Alexandria, who is living right at the same time. Matter of fact, he's living in Caesarea. at the same time that this mosaic was probably put on the floor. So before we look closer at some of these quote-unquote church fathers'writings, I wanted to bring up a point that I just heard from Dr. Dustin Smith on his biblical unity.

podcast. Apparently Sam Tidman of the Transfigured podcast, who knows the history of the church fathers well, brought it to Dustin's attention. I recommend listening to Dr. Smith's Biblical Unitarian podcast description. about the God-Jesus-Christ inscription. There was only one thing I disagreed with him on.

I don't think Jesus is called God by Thomas or in Hebrews 1.8. But that's kind of a side issue to who Jesus is in the Megiddo inscription. So here's the geographical point that Dr. Smith made, and it's a very good point. Look how close these two guys, Justin Martyr, we're going to look at, an origin originally from Alexandria, but who lived in Caesarea. Look how close they are connected to this part of the land.

You see, here's Megiddo, just on the edge, right where the Megiddo Pass comes into the Jezreel Valley. Same as Ligio, right? The Romans are going to call it Ligio. Well, here's the area of Samaria.

So close to where Justin Martyr was from. Now, Justin's a little before this mosaic. But then Origen, who's living right at the time of this mosaic, he actually was living in Caesarea probably when this mosaic was laid down on the ground, when it was made.

And you can see where Caesarea is here. It's only about between 15 and 20 miles between Megiddo and Caesarea. And by the way, the most direct route runs right through that Megiddo Pass. So keep that in mind, this geographical... affiliation of both Origen and Justin Martyr to this location.

These two are good representatives of how quote-unquote Christians were thinking in this region at the time. So let's look at the kind of God that Justin Martyr thought Jesus to be in the middle of the second century A.D. He's the earliest of the quote-unquote church fathers I'm going to look at. He's writing in about 150 A.D.

his work called Dialogue with Trifo the Jew. And in section 56, here's what he says. He's speaking to Trifo the Jew. He says, I shall attempt to persuade you, since you have understood the scriptures, of the truth of what I say, that there is and that there is said to be another God and Lord subject to the maker of all things, who is also called an angel, because he announces to men whatsoever the maker of all things, above whom there is no other God, wishes to announce to them.

Okay, so look at the terminology of Justin Martyr. He says that Jesus, he's talking about Jesus, whom he thought was the pre-incarnate Logos, is another God subject to the maker of all things. He's subordinate to the maker of all things.

He's not the same being. He's a distinct being who is subject and subordinate to the maker of all things, who is the Father. Okay? So, for Justin Martyr, Jesus was not one co-equal member of a triune God. There's no trinity in Justin Martyr's way of thinking.

To him, the God Jesus was another God with a small g. A lesser God and Lord, who also was a messenger or angel for the maker of all things, or God. So, you can see in his mind, there's two distinct beings here. There's the maker of all things, and there's another God, a subordinate God, with a small g. For Justin, the one true God.

was the Father, the maker of all things, above whom there is no other God. Jesus was a second, subordinate, distinct being from God, the maker of all things. That's the kind of God that I think is being represented here in the God-Jesus-Christ mosaic of Legio. Let's look at Tertullian. He's a little bit later.

He's going right into the time that this mosaic floor was laid. In his writing called Against Praxis, dating to right around 230 AD, Tertullian writes, Believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, that means at the current time, that this one only God has also a son, his word, who proceeded from himself. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation. Unquote. See what he's saying?

He's saying that there was a time when the Son didn't exist. The S-O-N, Son, didn't exist under the current dispensation at this time. He has brought forth a son.

So the son didn't always exist. The son of God was brought forth by God at a specific time. The son of God had a beginning and was derived from God. Tertullian also writes in Apology, chapter 21, talking about Jesus, He became also the son of God and was begotten when he proceeded forth from him.

He proceeds forth from God. He is generated so that he is the Son of God, and he is called deity from unity of substance with the Father. Unquote.

So this is Tertullian's way to think of Jesus as God, as a derived God. You might say in the same way that Dionysus could be called a god because Zeus brought him forth. Now, it's interesting that Tertullian was the first one to use the Latin word Trinitas, right? It's the Trinity.

And this is brought out by Trinitarians. Like when the deity of Christ... Believers and Trinitarians say, oh, look at the early church fathers.

They called Jesus God. He's God. Or the Tertullian used the Trinity. See, the Trinity is already here.

the early 3rd century. Well, I hate to break it to you, but Tertullian means something completely different by using the word Trinity than modern Christians do. And he means something completely different by calling Jesus God than modern Christians do.

Tertullian did not mean, by the word Trinitas, three co-equal, co-eternal persons in one being. He viewed the Son as having a beginning, being derived from and subordinate to the Father. And by the way, it looks like he believed that the Spirit was derived from and subordinate to the Son. This is not three co-equal, co-eternal persons in one being. It's not the Trinity in the way that was defined in a later century.

Listen to him again in his work called Against Hermogenes. He wrote, We should not suppose that there is any other being than God alone who is unbegotten and uncreated. How can it be that anything except the Father should be older, and on this account indeed nobler, than the Son of God, the only begotten and first begotten Word?

That which did not require a Maker to give it existence, that's the Father, will be much more elevated in rank than that which had an author to bring it into being. That's the son. So for Tertullian, God the Father brought forth the son. The son is begotten.

And begotten is just a fancy English way to say born of, born from. The father alone was unbegotten, uncreated. For Tertullian, you could call the son God because he was derived from.

brought forth by the Father. Just to emphasize, to Tertullian, the one only God was the Father. The Trinitas, the Trinity, was not three co-equal, co-eternal members of one God, but was really kind of a triad of three. The Father, the one only God, and then the Son and Spirit, who both had separate beginnings. Almost like, and maybe this is not a fair analogy, but almost like a father a son, and a grandson.

All right? They're not all one being. They might have the same substance, but they're not all one being. And the only one who was never born and never derived was the father.

And therefore, he was greater than the other two. To Tertullian, there was a time when the son did not exist as a person. The son was not an eternal being in the same sense that God was.

God with a capital G. There was also a time when the one only God was not even the Father. Why would he say that?

Here's why. Quote, in this way he, God, became the Father by the Son. Unquote.

So God only became a Father when he brought forth the Son. So according to Tertullian, God was not even always the Father. Only when he brought forth the Son did he become a Father. To Tertullian, the son was divine or God because he was made of a portion of the substance that the father is composed of.

All right, so this is the kind of God that they thought Jesus was when this Ligio Megiddo inscription was being laid down. And now let's take our third testimony, origin of Alexandria. Jesus as a begotten or generated God. Again, early in the 3rd century. He's writing right around the time that this mosaic floor is laid down.

And, like we mentioned, At the time, he's the most influential Christian speaker person in the region, living in Caesarea, just 20 miles away. It's not too big of a jump to think that he would be a bit of a hero to these Gentile Christians living in Ligio, including some Roman soldiers. Here's what he writes in his book called On the First Principles.

First, he says that there is one God who created and arranged all things, and who, when nothing else existed, called all things into being. This just and good God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, himself gave the law and the prophets and the gospels, being also the God of the apostles and of the Old and New Testaments. Unquote. Okay, so here, Origen calls the one God, the Father. And he's the father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he's the God of the prophets and of the apostles in the New Testament. And then secondly, in his preface, he says, Secondly, that Jesus Christ himself, who came, was born of the Father before all creatures. That, after he had been the servant of the Father in the creation, in the last times, divesting himself, became a man. and was incarnate, although God, either with a capital or small g, and while made a man, remained the God which he was, unquote. Okay, so we can see in Origen's mind, Jesus is born of the Father.

He's generated. Apparently, Origen starts to come up with these weird ideas of an eternal generation of the Son. But in any case, we can see that Origen believed that the one God is originally the Father, and that Jesus Christ is subservient, subordinate, derived from the Father.

So in the early 3rd century AD, Jesus was not a co-equal, co-eternal member of a tri-personed one God. Jesus Christ was another God with a small g, subordinate to and derived from God, the Father, the maker of all things, being begotten. or brought forth by and from God means that Jesus had a beginning.

Jesus could be called God with a small g because God brought him forth from the same essence as himself. So when we read these so-called church fathers of the 2nd and early 3rd centuries AD, to call Jesus God is something entirely different than it is. after the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. The God Jesus Christ of the 2nd and 3rd centuries would be with a small g, subordinate God to the Father because he is derived from, even created by the Father. So we can see that there is a development or evolution in the Godness, the deity of Jesus. It's evident in the early Christian sources.

Jesus was not a full-blown member of a co-equal, co-eternal trinity until late in the 4th century. And this is a challenge for Trinitarians. This is a challenge for the folks in the Bible Museum in Washington, D.C. If you're going to bring out this mosaic and say, See, Jesus is God in the beginning of the 3rd century. He's God.

Well, you're not being honest with the sources that we have. You're either being dishonest. or you're showing your ignorance. Anybody who's honest with the record of the church fathers at the time will see that the kind of God they thought Jesus was, was a God with a small g.

Here's an interesting archaeological find from the same archaeological excavation in nearby living quarters that the To God Jesus Christ inscription was found. The excavators found the... Roman god Lars, depicted here in plural, the Larins Domestica. It means household guardian.

So some members of the Roman legion had Lars as their god, their household god, protecting them. Others, the Christians, had another god with a small g protecting them. And this is another interesting fact about the mosaic floor, is that it was a surprise to historians and archaeologists that people could be so expressive of their Christianity at this time.

That it was even acceptable among a Roman legion to have your God be Jesus. But it was probably understood in the same sense that just down the street, there were other members of the Roman Legion who had Lars as their protective god. So, let's keep in mind that the title, God, Jesus Christ, you can put a capital or a small g on it, the title God, Jesus Christ, is not in the Bible.

God, Jesus Christ, is not a biblical title. We have warnings not to go beyond what is written, especially for Protestants. People should be very careful with and suspicious of a title that is not in the Bible. Just like God the Son is never in the Bible, God, Jesus Christ, is not a title ever in the Bible. How about the biblical Jesus?

In the Bible, Jesus the Christ, Christ means the anointed one, Christ or Messiah is not a title for deity. Anywhere in the Bible, Jesus Christ calls himself a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God, John 8, 40. And Peter described Jesus in Acts 2, 22, saying this, Men of Israel, hear these words, Shema Yisrael, Jesus of Nazareth. A man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.

But you see how Peter distinguishes between God and the man Christ Jesus? Jesus is not a God-man to Peter or to Jesus himself. He is a man through whom God, someone else, did mighty works, wonders, and signs. Peter says in that same sermon, Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. So God made Jesus Lord and Christ.

By the way, it never ever says in the New Testament that God made Jesus God. He made him Lord and Christ. The man Jesus was made Lord and Christ.

In the New Testament, Jesus has a God many times. These are only sample verses. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1.3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The God of Jesus Christ. The Father of mercies and God of all comfort. The Lord Jesus Christ has a God.

The one God. There's only one God. And if the God of the Lord Jesus Christ is the one God, There's no such thing as a trinity. Jesus describes himself as having a God.

He says in Revelation, this is the raised from the dead, exalted Jesus. He says, the one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. And Paul, in 1 Timothy 2, 4-5, like I say, these are only samples. Paul writes that God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Okay, so what's the knowledge of the truth? For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Unquote. The one mediator between God and men is not a God-man Christ Jesus. The one mediator between God and men is not the God Christ Jesus.

The one mediator between God and men is the man Christ Jesus. So in other words, The title God, Christ, Jesus of the second and third centuries and later was a perversion, a corruption of the biblical Jesus. What Paul and the other apostles warned about happened.

In the centuries following Jesus, a different gospel, a different Jesus, a different Christ was formulated in the minds of predominantly Gentiles. But as the apostle Paul made crystal clear, as for us, there is one God, the Father. Please.

My Trinitarian friends, my modalist friends, for us believers, as Paul writes, there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. So here are some sources and resources for further examination, if you would. For one, I might recommend the One God Report podcast, numbers 10 and 11, on the YouTube channel, you'll have to search it out, called The Evolution of the Trinity with Dr. Dale Tuggy. And then you can see the other one. Here's a good article by Christopher Rolston on these inscriptions and some of the excavations.

Richard Rubenstein on when Jesus became God. The preliminary original report on the excavation at Ligio and the inscription. And a couple others there. The nice little biblical archaeology review article on the inscription as well. And I might add in the recent podcast by Dustin Smith on the Biblical Unitarian podcast.

You should be able to see it.

Transcript for:Exploring the Megiddo Mosaic Inscription

Transcript for:
Exploring the Megiddo Mosaic Inscription