Jesus Was Walking on Ice

This is what a couple of scientists have suggested after studying air and water temperatures during the time of Jesus:

Combining evidence of a cold snap 2,000 years ago with sophisticated mapping of the Sea of Galilee, Israeli and U.S. scientists have come up with a scientific explanation of how Jesus could have walked on water.

Their answer: It was actually floating ice.

The scientists acknowledge that the Sea of Galilee, in what is now northern Israel, has never frozen in modern times. But they say geological core samples suggest that average temperatures were lower in Jesus's day, and that there were at least two protracted cold spells in the region 1,500 to 2,500 years ago.

In addition to chilly weather, their explanation depends on a rare physical property of the Sea of Galilee, known to modern-day Israelis as Lake Kinneret. It is fed by salty springs along its western shore that produce plumes of dense water, thermally isolating areas that could freeze even if the entire lake did not, they assert.

"I don't know whether the story is based on someone seeing Jesus walk on ice," said Doron Nof, an Israel-born professor of oceanography at Florida State University. "All I know is that during that time, a freeze could have happened -- and it could have looked like someone was walking on water, particularly if it rained after the ice formed."

Nof apparently made a few headlines some years ago by suggesting that strong winds had possibly lowered the water level of the Red Sea, allowing the Israelites to cross as they fled Egypt and Pharoah's army. Then the wind stopped, the waters returned, and the army was swallowed up.

Sure. This just proves that some scientist's can be as naive about religion as some religious folks can be naive about science. Both the Jesus story and the Moses story are myth. Water symbolized mystery, danger, and power in pre-scientific cultures. It still does in ours. Who has the power to part the seas and walk on water? Only God and God's divinely empowered emissaries. These mythic stories are there to tell us that Moses and Jesus were chosen by God. It doesn't help science or religion to try and find a scientific explanation for them.