The job of archaeologists is to dig up the past and help us know what our ancestors did and how it shaped our lives today.
And, to the shock of many historians, we may have just discovered something that could change our understanding of the early Church and how it shaped Christianity.
Archaeologists just dug up an ancient Christian relic, which might reshape our view of the early church and how that affects today’s Christians.
History is always changing
Even with all of our technology and advanced “understanding” we have today as a society, we still only know a slither of what has really happened in the past.
We really live in exceptional times where everything is being recorded by video or pictures.
Up until a decade or so ago, most of what was happening on a daily basis wasn’t being recorded for prosperity’s sake.
Even writing down events and knowledge on a mass scale is something that is relatively new to mankind.
The printing press wasn’t invented until 1440.
Before then, the average person alive would never lay eyes on a book, let alone transcribe their lives or understanding of the world around them.
So, it’s a safe bet to assume most of mankind’s past is currently lost to us.
But we are still able to discover relics about the past that transform our understanding of history.
And every once in a while, in a generation, an archeologist makes a discovery that challenges our current understanding of our past and rewrites history books.
For instance, the discovery of the ancient city of Göbekli Tepe in 1994 completely changed our understanding of history.
Before Göbekli Tepe was unearthed, there was a consensus among historians that civilization didn’t start till the advent of agriculture.
Man started to farm around 8000 BC, but Göbekli Tepe dates back to at least 9500 BC showing that our ancestors were actually getting organized before farming started.
This discovery forced many ancient history books to be re-written.
Better understanding of the early Church
But archaeologists made a discovery out of Austria that could change our understanding of the early Church that is just beginning to reshape our understanding of early Christian history.
In the secluded hills of Burgbichl, Austria, archaeologists pulled up an early Christian Church relic that is believed to be at least 1,500 years old.
The relic is a marble box with ivory motifs (artistic pictures) inside the box.
Some of the motifs seem to show Moses with the Ten Commandments and Jesus ascending into Heaven in a chariot.
This discovery will help Christian scholars better understand what the early Church believed and held out as being important.
But what makes this discovery even more special is that it is the first discovery of its kind in over 100 years.
As the lead archaeologist on the project described it saying, “We know of around 40 ivory boxes of this kind worldwide and, as far as I know, the last time one of these was found during excavations was around 100 years ago – the few pyxes that exist are either preserved in cathedral treasures or exhibited in museums.”
Time will tell to see what else they dig up in Burgbichl, Austria that may give us a better understanding of the founding years of Christianity.
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