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Friday, September 03, 2021

More on the Church of the Glorious Martyr

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE AND EPIGRAPHY: Byzantine church dedicated to unknown martyr unearthed in Israel (Owen Jarus, Live Science).

A couple of years ago I noted the discovery of the late-antique Church of the Glorious Martyr at Beit Shemesh.

The inscription does not name the martyr or even indicate a grammatical gender. There was speculation at the time that the martyr could have been Thecla, a legendary Christian woman known from the Acts of Paul and Thecla. See also here. The current article suggests that the martyr could have been one Zechariah, known from a nearby shrine.

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