Well its settled. We now know how Jesus managed to walk on water on the Sea of Galilee. It wasn’t a miracle after all. Jesus was on thin ice, and probably near the shore line of the Sea of Galilee.

The Journal of Paleolimnology (who knew there was such a journal?) has an article written by a Florida State scholar Doreen Nof and others in which he things he can now experimentally prove that Jesus walked on ice. Nof and his colleagues point out that in the Galilee region in the past 12,000 years unusual freezing conditions probably occured from time to time on parts of the freshwater lake called the Sea of Galilee.

Acknowledging that this hasn’t happened recently, nonetheless they note that there were cold stretches 1,500 to 2,500 years ago. The scientists added that Galilee has warm, salty springs along the western shore, an area Jesus frequented. The water north of the springs does not convect when it is cold, and so they hypothesize that ice thick enough to support human weight could have formed in this area. Nof adds that from a distance it would have appeared Jesus walked on water. Furthermore, they suggest if it had recently rained, it would have left a smooth watery coating on the ice, which would make it look like water. These scientists don’t insist it happened this way, they are just claiming it is possible.

I have a few questions—1) Did the ice reach out far enough from the shore for Jesus to step into the boat where the disciples were rowing?; 2) Was Peter’s attempt to walk on water while in the lake, likewise skating on thin ice, and he fell through?; 3) What the heck were they doing playing row, row, row your boat on the lake during the worst ice storm in 1,500 years?

Mark Twain had a different idea. When he visited the Holy Land at the end of the 19th century with a tour group there was a boatman who offered to take the group across the Sea of Galilee in his boat for a fee. When Twain asked what the fee was and was told $50 (a huge sum in those days) he quipped “I now see why Jesus walked across this lake.”