/ 12 April 2006

Jesus ‘was walking on thin ice’

Jesus may have appeared to be walking on water when he was actually floating on a thin layer of ice, formed by a rare combination of weather and water conditions on the Sea of Galilee, according to a team of United States and Israeli scientists.

Their study, published by the Journal of Paleolimnology, argues that salty springs along the Galilee’s western shore can stop surface water circulating at cold temperatures and there were unusually cold spells, lasting up to 200 years, in biblical times.

Such ”unique freezing processes” would occasionally have allowed a crust of ice to form, a phenomenon the study calls ”springs ice”, in patches on Lake Kinneret, as the Sea of Galilee is known in Israel. One set of such springs is found near Tabgha, an ancient settlement that is traditionally the site for the New Testament’s multiplication of loaves and fishes.

”The chance that there was ice on the lake is very, very high,” said Doron Nof, professor of physical oceanography at Florida State University and the study’s lead author. ”It’s almost guaranteed during those cold periods, 100 or 200 years long, that there was one such event at least, maybe four.”

The study said that on this basis ”the unusual local freezing process might have provided an origin for the story that Christ walked on water. Since the springs ice is relatively small, a person standing or walking on it may appear to an observer situated some distance away to be ‘walking on water’.” This was particularly true ”if it rained after the ice was formed (because rain smoothes out the ice’s surface). Whether this happened or not is an issue for religious scholars, archaeologists, anthropologists and believers to decide on.” — Â