The discovery of one of the earliest churches at Megiddo, Israel several years ago, gives archaeological support for the divinity of Jesus as an early Christian teaching.
Many recent writers, particularly Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code, have insisted that the ‘divinity of Jesus Christ’ was a later teaching that was formulated by Constantine and later Christian leaders in the 4th century.
The late 2nd-3rd century structure had an elaborate mosaic floor that contained motifs of fish, and had 3 inscriptions. The most important:
“the God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”
Recently a film crew was granted access to the site in order to produce a documentary–The Life of Jesus–due to air on Australian television in April 2009 and later to be released on DVD.
Response: The early Christian structure is important because it proves that the divinity of Jesus was taught much earlier than some have contended. Some have speculated that it was not taught in the church until the 4th century during the reign of Constantine, that it was a fabrication of the Council of Nicea (325).
However, most Christian Bible scholars and theologians find that the Divinity of Jesus is clearly taught in the New Testament writings of the 1st century and not a later development.