By RITA DELFINER, AP
June 11, 2008
Archaeologists have discovered a cave in Jordan where they believe 70 disciples of Jesus Christ worshipped - and that could be the first Christian church in the world.
The ancient hiding place was excavated underneath St. Georgeous Church in Rihab in northern Jordan, the archaeologists said.
PHOTOS: World's Oldest Church Discovered
St. Georgeous dates back to 230 AD and is itself one of the world's oldest churches, along with one dug up in the Jordanian city of Aqaba in 1998 and another discovered in Israel three years ago.
The underground house of worship is even older than St. Georgeous, according to archaeologists. They say they found evidence that early Christians, who had fled persecution in Jerusalem, lived in hiding in the cave and practiced their faith there in secrecy.
"We have uncovered what we believe to be the first church in the world, dating from 33 AD to 70 AD," archaeologist Abdul Qader Hussan, head of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, told The Jordan Times on Monday.
"We have evidence to believe this church sheltered the early Christians: the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ," he told the paper.
Hussan said a mosaic inscription on the floor of St. Georgeous above the cave describes "the 70 beloved by God and Divine," which he believes is a reference to those who fled from Jerusalem to northern Jordan, especially Rihab.
Descending a few steps down into the cave "one would see a circle shape area, believed to be the apse, and several stone seats for the ecclesiastics," Hussan said.
The early Christians lived right next to where they prayed, he said.
Archaeologists also found a deep tunnel, which they believe the Christians used to get to a source of water, he said.
A graveyard close to the cave yielded a treasure trove of artifacts, Hussan said, including pottery dating back to the 3rd century.
Hussan said he believed they stayed safely in the cave until the Christian religion was embraced by the Roman Empire. "It was then when St. Georgeous was built," he said.
Some experts believe more evidence is needed before reaching conclusions about the cave.
Thomas Parker, a historian at the University of North Carolina-Raleigh, led the 1998 discovery in Aqaba of a two-story mud-brick building erected by Christians around 290 or 300 AD.
He said he had not seen the underground cave at Rihab, but that more evidence is needed.
"An extraordinary claim like this requires extraordinary evidence," The Associated Press quoted him as saying. "We need to see the artifacts and dating evidence to suggest such an occupation in the 1st century AD."
He pointed out that it's hard to tell how old mosaics are unless they include dates as part of the text - and that typically, those with Christian themes date from the 5th to 6th century.
"To make the jump that this was actually used by Christians fleeing Jerusalem in the 1st century AD seems like a stretch to me," he said.
Archimandrite Nektarious, Bishop Deputy of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in Amman, Jordan, lauded the cave's discovery as "an important milestone for Christians all around the world and right here at home."
"It confirms that Christians in this region are not strangers," he said. "They are real citizens who have always had roots in this region from those days until the present."
