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FSU Professor: Jesus May Have Walked On Ice, Not Water
POSTED: 4:26 pm EDT April 5, 2006
UPDATED: 9:05 am EDT April 8, 2006
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Jesus walked on water, according to the Bible, but a Florida State University professor says he may have actually walked on an isolated patch of floating ice.
Nof maintains that a patch of ice floating in the Sea of Galilee, actually a freshwater lake in present-day Israel, would have been difficult to distinguish from unfrozen water surrounding it.
"I'm not trying to provide any information that has to do with theology here," Nof said in an interview Wednesday. "All we've thought is about the natural process. What theologians or anybody else does with that it's their business so to speak."
According to the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark and John, Jesus' disciples were alone well out on the Galilee during the night when a storm came up. Jesus walked to the terrified men, who thought he was a ghost, got in their boat and the storm calmed, according to the accounts. In Matthew, Peter tried to walk to Jesus but failed because he lacked faith.
Darrell Bock, a research professor of New Testament studies at the Dallas Theological Seminary, lightheartedly dismissed the idea that Jesus walked on ice.
"I'm just cold to the theory," said Bock, author of "Breaking the Da Vinci Code," that defends traditional Christian beliefs challenged in Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code."
"I tend to treat it as a real miracle," Bock said. "Almost all the nature miracles are challenged in one degree or another. It's usually a world view issue about what someone thinks is possible."
Other reaction to the theory announced Tuesday hasn't been so reasoned.
"I get hate e-mail on the average every three minutes," Nof said.
One e-mailer called him "the most stupid person on the planet" and then closed by wishing that he "go to hell where you belong."
An explanation of Nof's research appears in the April edition of the Journal of Paleolimnology, a scientific publication on the reconstruction of lake histories.
John P. Smol, a biologist at Ontario's Queens University and coeditor of the journal, said the article was published only after peer review by two experts who considered only the science, not any theological implications.
Smol pointed out the article itself states: "Whether this happened or not is an issue for religion scholars, archeologists, anthropologists, and believers to decide on."
Nof's co-authors are biostatistics professor Ian McKeague of Columbia University and atmospheric science professor Nathan Paldor of Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
They came up with the theory after studying records of long-ago water temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea based on core samples of shells and other animal remains taken from the bottom.
The records indicated two lengthy periods between 2,500 and 1,500 years ago were chilly enough during brief cold spells to form springs ice surrounded by open water on the Sea of Galilee, said Nof, a native of Israel.
The unfrozen water would have come from salty springs along the lake's western shore in Tabgha, an area archaeological findings related to Jesus have been documented. It takes colder temperatures to freeze salty water than fresh water.
Nof has calculated the odds of such conditions occurring are about once in 1,000 years, but during Jesus' time the cooler climate may have favored more frequent formations of ice springs -- about once in 30 to 160 years.
University of Manitoba geologist W.M. Last, the Journal of Paleolimnology's other coeditor, said it is a new approach to studying ancient lake temperatures and has potential for similar studies of other lakes.
Nof and his co-authors are nonbelievers, but he denied they set out to debunk the walking-on-water story.
"This is just what we say could have happened," Nof said. "How that fits into an individual's system of beliefs, I don't know."
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