An 1800 year old floor mosaic discovered in Israel in 2005 during a prison expansion has been shipped to the United States for an exhibition at the Museum of the Bible, and as such is getting a ton of publicity in the news thanks in no small part to a plethora of press releases by the Museum of the Bible and those on their payroll. The mosaic says in ancient Greek "God Jesus Christ" as in "Jesus Christ the God". The hype surrounding this mosaic may be a little overboard though.

This from the Daily Mail summarizes everything:

Carlos Campo, CEO of the museum, hailed the mosaic as 'the greatest discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls,' while his colleagues noted it was 'the most important archaeological discovery for understanding the early Christian church.'

Both statements are dramatic over exaggerations. If the argument that "Christianity is just a medieval invention to subjugate peasants" or "Emperor Constantine invented Christ's divinity" had any validity whatsoever, this would be groundbreaking! However, we have known definitively that the early church believed Jesus was God since the very beginning. The Gospel of John; which existed before the Bible was compiled by the Catholic Church; and letters from the first church fathers all make this abundantly clear. I suppose if a protestant looking for evidence outside the Bible that is not overtly Catholic that Christians believed Jesus Christ is God, then this would be a very welcome discovery. However, this really isn't anything new if you're open to all of the evidence that exists, regardless of its source.

The mosaic is neat. I wouldn't make a trip to Washington, D.C. specifically to see it at the Museum of the Bible; and I wouldn't specifically go to the Museum of the Bible just to see this Mosaic. All that it proves is that Christianity is not a medieval invention; which any rational sane person with an ounce of education already knew from the mountain of archeological evidence that predates this mosaic, is much more specific in early Church beliefs than this mosaic, and discovered decades and centuries before this mosaic.

The archeological record is clear: the Church has always taught that Jesus Christ is God. There have been heresies that have arisen through the ages from both within and outside the Church that challenge this, so don't let your faith be rocked by a mosaic or manuscript claiming the opposite if that's ever discovered.

What is important here is just what the mosaic says and what the Church has always known...

Jesus Christ is God!