Jesus could have walked on water ... frozen water
April 06, 2006
MIAMI: The New Testament says Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor has a less miraculous explanation - he walked on a floating piece of ice.
Doron Nof, professor of oceanography at Florida State University, said yesterday that his study found an unusual combination of water and atmospheric conditions in what is now northern Israel could have led to ice forming on the Sea of Galilee.
Professor Nof - who, in the 1990s, also stirred controversy with his scientific explanation for the parting of the Red Sea by Moses - used records of the Mediterranean Sea's surface temperatures and statistical models to examine the Sea of Galilee, now known to Israelis as Lake Kinneret.
The study found that a period of cooler temperatures in the area between 1500 and 2600 years ago could have included the decades in which Jesus lived.
A drop in temperature below freezing could have caused ice thick enough to support a human to form on the freshwater lake near the western shore, he said.
It might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water. Professor Nof said he offered his study - published this month in the Journal of Paleolimnology - as a "possible explanation" for Jesus's walk on water.
"We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account," he said.
Reuters
April 06, 2006
MIAMI: The New Testament says Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor has a less miraculous explanation - he walked on a floating piece of ice.
Doron Nof, professor of oceanography at Florida State University, said yesterday that his study found an unusual combination of water and atmospheric conditions in what is now northern Israel could have led to ice forming on the Sea of Galilee.
Professor Nof - who, in the 1990s, also stirred controversy with his scientific explanation for the parting of the Red Sea by Moses - used records of the Mediterranean Sea's surface temperatures and statistical models to examine the Sea of Galilee, now known to Israelis as Lake Kinneret.
The study found that a period of cooler temperatures in the area between 1500 and 2600 years ago could have included the decades in which Jesus lived.
A drop in temperature below freezing could have caused ice thick enough to support a human to form on the freshwater lake near the western shore, he said.
It might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water. Professor Nof said he offered his study - published this month in the Journal of Paleolimnology - as a "possible explanation" for Jesus's walk on water.
"We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account," he said.
Reuters
^ that theory has no pillars, its soo weak
eace:
