Jesus may have walked on ice, not water – study

[Janus]

Originally posted by AP Press
The New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor believes there could be a less miraculous explanation -- he walked on a floating piece of ice.

Professor Doron Nof also theorised in the early 1990s that Moses's parting of the Red Sea had solid science behind it.
Nof, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, said on Tuesday that his study found an unusual combination of water and atmospheric conditions in what is now northern

Israel could have led to ice formation on the Sea of Galilee.
Nof used records of the Mediterranean Sea's surface temperatures and statistical models to examine the dynamics of the Sea of Galilee, which Israelis know now as Lake Kinneret.
The study found that a period of cooler temperatures in the area between 1,500 and 2,600 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 surface of the freshwater lake near the western shore, Nof said. It might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water.
Nof said he offered his study -- published in the April edition of the Journal of Paleolimnology -- as a "possible explanation" for Jesus' walk on water.
"If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don't," Nof said. "Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don't know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it."
"We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account."
When he offered his theory 14 years ago that wind and sea conditions could explain the parting of the Red Sea, Nof said he received some hate mail, even though he noted that the idea could support the biblical description of the event.
And as his theory of Jesus' walk on ice began to circulate, he had more hate mail in his e-mail inbox.
"They asked me if I'm going to try next to explain the resurrection," he said.

[amanondeathrow]

There is a much greater chance that the story was simply made up.

Why is so hard to believe that most of the Bible is based on fiction, let alone believe that Jesus actually walked on ice instead of water.

[Oh-Dae-Su]

ice in Judea? :blink: that's bull, even in the North Sea where the temperatures can get colder than what that guy explained goesn't get ice.

[redstar2000]

Yeah, it's bullshit. From the mid-19th century to present days, there have been people attempting to construct "scientific" explanations for "miracles"...some of those really old guys might have been "sincere" but now it's just an academic hustle to screw some money out of the godracket.

Everyone with a nanogram of common sense knows that the "miracle stories" are all fictional! :angry:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/223.gif

[Eleutherios]

If he walked on ice, then why is that portrayed as a miracle? I can hardly see why spectators would be so impressed by a guy walking on ice that they would write it down in their holy book.

And as for Moses parting the Red Sea, well, that would have to be one hell of a coincidence if it was just a random fluke of water dynamics.

The easiest explanation for these so-called miracles is that we simply have no good evidence that Jesus or Moses existed in the first place.

[Dreckt]

The easiest explanation for these so-called miracles is that we simply have no good evidence that Jesus or Moses existed in the first place.

I'm not sure if you are right. The last time I heard, the proof of the existance of Jesus was positive. However, his existance is still debatable and so on, the thing here is not that he lived or not but the miracles.

I think the best example of this can be found in a small country in the far east - North Korea. The worship of Kim Jong Il, as the demigod who was born a top of a shining mountain, is one example of how a person in modern times is glorified.

A person who have less information than us may start to think in lines such as "hey, maybe it's true? No one has actually tried to kill him, he never did anything wrong etc, people are happy" and so forth.

Our anti-comrade in the west, Bush, is another example, when he shortly after 9/11 said he recieved a message from God to "purify" this world of evil commu-Islamic terrorism. Now imagine if the US didn't have today's technology, but that most people had only a radio or black and white TV - some would think he spoke the truth!

Previous history also show us how known people claimed to recieve messages from one being to the other. Adolph Hitler is said to have felt the precence of a force from time to time, it is also said that his decision to invade the Soviet Union was based on some kind of Nordic-astrology (alternative, Adolph recieved a message from the god Thor (from Scandinavian mythology)). However, I am not sure about what Hitler believed, and like I said, these are only claims.

It is though true that the nazis did develop their own state-religious machine ("Blood Worship").

Then we have all the others - Joseph Smith, Mohammed, Buddha (note: who was a man but became a god) etc.

[Eleutherios]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2006, 09:31 PM

The easiest explanation for these so-called miracles is that we simply have no good evidence that Jesus or Moses existed in the first place.

I'm not sure if you are right. The last time I heard, the proof of the existance of Jesus was positive.
And that proof is...?

[Janus]

ice in Judea?
Read the article. Nof gives an explanation in it.

All that the professor is trying to do is debunk one of the supposed miraculous feats of Jesus.

[Oh-Dae-Su]

whatever i could care less... but hey for those who say Jesus didn't exist, actually even the most skeptic people do believe that a man that we know off as Jesus did exist, whether you believe his teachings, that's another thing. But his existence is doubted because he is portrayed as a supernatural being. And the proof, is on Jewish and Roman scriptures of the time. There was a man, put to death by Pontius Pilate, petitioned by high ranking Jewish clerics, and that man was obviously the man we know off as Jesus in present day.

[Eleutherios]

whatever i could care less... but hey for those who say Jesus didn't exist, actually even the most skeptic people do believe that a man that we know off as Jesus did exist, whether you believe his teachings, that's another thing.
What are you talking about? I can't see how anyone who's actually investigated the evidence for Jesus' existence would say something like that. Unlike Jesus, the existence of these skeptics can be proven. I suggest you read what they actually have to say before you dismiss them as non-existent:
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/
http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical...eally_live.html (http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/marshall_gauvin/did_jesus_really_live.html)

But his existence is doubted because he is portrayed as a supernatural being.
No, his existence is doubted because every single document which mentions him is a hearsay account which comes from long after his supposed death. Even the non-Christian references to him seem to be nothing but historians simply reporting the beliefs of Christians at the time, or documents which have been tampered with by later Christians.

And the proof, is on Jewish and Roman scriptures of the time.
Care to point out which ones?

There was a man, put to death by Pontius Pilate, petitioned by high ranking Jewish clerics, and that man was obviously the man we know off as Jesus in present day.
Really? Where did you hear that? There is to my knowledge no contemporary record of Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus.

I'm not saying that Jesus definitely did not exist. I'm just saying there isn't any incontrovertible evidence which has been able to prove to me that he did. And in the absence of any definite proof one way or the other, I'm going to reserve judgment.