Comments on Jesus Walking on Ice story

The following story was featured briefly on Yahoo News:

Jesus Could Have Walked on Ice, Scientist Says

Rare conditions could have conspired to create hard-to-see ice on the Sea of Galilee that a person could have walked on back when Jesus is said to have walked on water, a scientist said today.

The study, which examines a combination of favorable water and environmental conditions, proposes that Jesus could have walked on an isolated patch of floating ice on what is now known as Lake Kinneret in northern Israel.

Looking at temperature records of the Mediterranean Sea surface and using analytical ice and statistical models, scientists considered a small section of the cold freshwater surface of the lake. The area studied, about 10,000 square feet, was near salty springs that empty into it.

The results suggest temperatures dropped to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celsius) during one of the two cold periods 2,500 –1,500 years ago for up to two days, the same decades during which Jesus lived.

With such conditions, a floating patch of ice could develop above the plumes resulting from the salty springs along the lake's western shore in Tabgha. Tabgha is the town where many archeological findings related to Jesus have been found.

"We simply explain that unique freezing processes probably happened in that region only a handful of times during the last 12,000 years," said Doron Nof, a Florida State University Professor of Oceanography. "We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account."

Nof figures that in the last 120 centuries, the odds of such conditions on the low latitude Lake Kinneret are most likely 1-in-1,000. But during the time period when Jesus lived, such “spring ice” may have formed once every 30 to 60 years.

Such floating ice in the unfrozen waters of the lake would be hard to spot, especially if rain had smoothed its surface.

"In today's climate, the chance of springs ice forming in northern Israel is effectively zero, or about once in more than 10,000 years," Nof said.

The findings are detailed in the April 2006 Journal of Paleolimnology.

Well, -that- was interesting. Here's Matthew's account of the event:

Jesus Walks on the Water (MT 14.22-27)

22Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

25During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.

27But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."

(see also Mark 6 & John 6)

Okay, let's assume for a moment that our scientist's data is correct and such icy conditions did occur two times over the past 2,500 years, which I humbly concede is entirely possible... I have two comments:

One - God's timing is sweet! Jesus would have been there at just the right time.

Two - Jesus was the world's first surfer! Righteous! Righteous!! Hang Ten Commandments, dude! (sorry for the shameless puns... I thought they were funny...)

To me, being a person who trusts the Bible and reasonably takes what it says at face value, I believe that this article is reaching. Like I mentioned earlier in the post, I understand that such an occurrence is scientifically reasonable and may have happened, but to suggest that this is an explaination for a recorded miracle is weak. If -anything- this only strengthens the miracle of the event. Whether Jesus walked on the water (H2O) or if he walked on the water (ice)... either way, it is a miracle. With that said, however, I do not believe that Jesus would have tried to deceive his friends by feigning walking on water by tip-toeing on ice, nor do I believe that if this -had- happened that the disciples wouldn't have seen it, nor failed to have recorded the event accurately.

Finally, Peter's brief walk on the water would have to be explained as such... he also stepped out onto the ice, but either slipped off the edge and fell in, or his portion of ice melted while Jesus' patch stayed firm enough to not only maintain his weight, but to pull Peter up...

Personally, I find this theory harder to rationalize than as it is recorded in the Bible. At the end of the day, God can work the way he chooses to work, and if he made a sheet of ice available for Jesus to stroll out to the boat on, then so be it. If that's the case, then he led that sheet of ice right out to their wind-tossed boat.

You go God. Sweeeeeeeeet.