Bible Synapse
Dura-Europos house church
Site · c. AD 232–256 · The early church · also called Dura-Europos church
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- c. AD 232–256 (the house and its use as a church)
- Found
- Dura-Europos, on the Euphrates, Syria, 1932. Found in the 1931–32 season of the Yale–French excavations at Dura-Europos, led on site by Clark Hopkins. The baptistery paintings were removed to Yale; the fate of the building since ISIL occupied the area is unknown.
- Now
- Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (1932.1200 (Good Shepherd painting))
- Passages
- Romans 16:5, Colossians 4:15, John 10:11, Mark 2:1–12, Matthew 14:22–33
What it is
A private house in the Roman frontier town of Dura-Europos that was converted into a Christian meeting place in the 3rd century. An inscription in the plaster dates the house to AD 232/233, and the town was abandoned after a Persian siege in 256, when a Roman earth ramp buried and preserved the building. Its baptistery was painted with scenes including the Good Shepherd, Adam and Eve, the healing of a paralysed man, and Jesus and Peter walking on the water.
How it connects to the Bible
This is later than the New Testament, but it is often called the earliest known house church, and it shows what one could look like. Paul's letters greet “the church that is in their house” (Romans 16:5) and the church in the house of Nymphas (Colossians 4:15). The paintings are among the oldest pictures of gospel scenes: Jesus as the good shepherd (John 10:11), healing a paralysed man (Mark 2:1–12) and walking on the sea (Matthew 14:22–33).
What scholars debate
Some scenes are debated: a procession of women may show the women at Jesus' tomb or the wise and foolish virgins.