Now here's a divine development.

Just ahead of the holidays, archeologists have "digitally unrolled" a 1,800-year-old silver amulet to decipher an inscription that's being hailed as the oldest known evidence of Christianity in Europe.

Authentic evidence of pure Christianity north of the Alps has never existed before now. And the findings have the potential to change holy history forever.

"It will force us to turn back the history of Christianity in Frankfurt and far beyond by around 50 to 100 years," said Mike Josef, mayor of Frankfurt, Germany, where the artifact was exhumed.

"The first Christian find north of the Alps comes from our city," added Josef. "We can be proud of that, especially now, so close to Christmas."

The amulet housed a "wafer-thin" foil, measuring 1.4 inches, and featuring text referred to as the "Frankfurt silver inscription."
It was found beneath the chin of a man's skeleton at a burial site on the outskirts of Frankfurt in 2018. However, the ancient wording, dating back to between 230 and 270 — when the predominant religions in Europe were Judaism and paganism — has been virtually illegible until now.

Specialists from the Leibniz Center for Archaeology (LEIZA) used computer tomography (CT) scans to decode the 18-line engraving, which declares Jesus Christ the "Son of God."

The writing calls Jesus the Son of God and says the man who "surrenders himself to the will," of the Lord will be protected. yoemll - stock.adobe.com

"In the name of Saint Titus. Holy, holy, holy! In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God! The Lord of the world resists with [strengths] all attacks [or setbacks]. The God grants entry to well-being. May this means of salvation protect the man who surrenders himself to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, since before Jesus Christ every knee bows: those in heaven, those on earth and those under the earth, and every tongue confesses (Jesus Christ)," reads the translation, per DailyMail.
The deific discovery closely trails the recent decrypting of the Meggido Mosaic, a 1,800-year-old relic that says, "Jesus is God." It, too, follows the July 2024 unearthing of a nearly 2,000-year-old manuscript that details the earliest known account of Christ's childhood.

Experts were forced to use extreme caution while digitally unrolling the ancient scroll. City of Frankfurt

To crack the code on the Frankfurt silver inscription, which is written in Latin, LEIZA experts used sophisticated technologies on the extremely delicate scroll.
"The challenge in the analysis was that the silver sheet was rolled, but after around 1,800 years, it was of course also creased and pressed,' Ivan Calandra, an archaeologist at LEIZA, said in a statement. "Using CT, we were able to scan it at a very high resolution and create a 3D model."

The pros reportedly placed individual segments of the scan together, piece by piece, until most of the words were visible.

However, there are said to be a few gaps in the text — which is being dubbed "purely Christian" as it spotlights Jesus Christ and Saint Titus, a missionary and church leader, but avoids pagan themes as well as elements of Judaism.

Professor Markus Scholz, an archaeologist from Goethe University in Frankfurt, helmed the deciphering efforts.

"I called in experts from the history of theology, among others, and we approached the text together, piece by piece, and finally deciphered it," said Scholz, who was surprised that the etchings were in Latin.

"Such inscriptions in amulets were usually written in Greek or Hebrew," he noted.

And while little is known about the man who was buried with the amulet, scientists reportedly believe that he was a devout Christian — although believers of the faith were still subject to persecution at the time of his death.
According to insiders, the late Jesus-lover likely wore the amulet on a cord around his neck for protection before transitioning into the afterlife. His grave also boasted an incense bowl and a jug made of fired clay.

Researchers consider him the "first Christian north of the Alps," and speculate that there could be more historical, untapped Christian burial sites around Europe.

"This extraordinary find affects many areas of research and will keep science busy for a long time to come," said Ina Hartwig, Frankfurt's head of culture and science.

"This affects archaeology as well as religious studies, philology and anthropology," she continued. "Such a significant find here in Frankfurt is really something extraordinary."
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