- Joined
- May 23, 2003
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don't know if this should be in new science, religion or fortean news stories. :?
anyway...
JESUS MAY HAVE WALKED ON FROZEN WATER, SCIENTISTS CLAIM
By Rachel Williams, PA, in New York
Jesus may not have walked on water as the Bible says but on a unique type of floating ice, according to research by scientists in America.
They believe that an isolated patch of such ice would have been hard to distinguish from unfrozen water around it in the Sea of Galilee, so that from a distance someone might appear to be walking on the water's surface.
``Springs ice'' is caused by a rare combination of water and atmospheric conditions, Oceanography Professor Doron Nof, of Florida State University, said.
He thinks it could have formed on the cold freshwater surface of what is now known as Lake Kinneret, in northern Israel, when already chilly temperatures briefly plummeted during one of two protracted cold periods between 2,500 and 1,500 years ago.
The water which did not freeze would have come from salty springs along the lake's western shore in Tabgha, an area where many archaeological findings related to Jesus have been documented.
Salt water freezes at a lower temperature than freshwater.
Prof Nof and his team came up with the theory after studying records of water temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea thousands of years ago, worked out using samples of shells and other animal remains from the bottom.
They calculated the odds of the conditions for springs ice as roughly once in 1,000 years, but said that during Jesus's life the chance would have been more like once in 30 to 160 years.
``As natural scientists, we simply explain that unique freezing processes probably happened in that region only a handful of times during the last 12,000 years,'' Prof Nof said.
``We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the Biblical account.'' The story of Jesus walking on water is recorded in the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark and John.
His disciples were said to be out on the Galilee at night when a storm blew up.
Jesus, who they thought was a ghost, walked to them and got in their boat, after which the storm calmed.
Prof Nof, who also made the headlines in 1992 when he offered a scientific explanation for Moses's parting of the Red Sea, said he was already getting hate email inspired by his latest theory roughly every three minutes.
One message called him ``the most stupid person on the planet'' and hoped that he ``go to hell where you belong''.
The research appears in the Journal of Paleolimnology, a scientific publication that addresses the reconstruction of lake history.
anyway...
JESUS MAY HAVE WALKED ON FROZEN WATER, SCIENTISTS CLAIM
By Rachel Williams, PA, in New York
Jesus may not have walked on water as the Bible says but on a unique type of floating ice, according to research by scientists in America.
They believe that an isolated patch of such ice would have been hard to distinguish from unfrozen water around it in the Sea of Galilee, so that from a distance someone might appear to be walking on the water's surface.
``Springs ice'' is caused by a rare combination of water and atmospheric conditions, Oceanography Professor Doron Nof, of Florida State University, said.
He thinks it could have formed on the cold freshwater surface of what is now known as Lake Kinneret, in northern Israel, when already chilly temperatures briefly plummeted during one of two protracted cold periods between 2,500 and 1,500 years ago.
The water which did not freeze would have come from salty springs along the lake's western shore in Tabgha, an area where many archaeological findings related to Jesus have been documented.
Salt water freezes at a lower temperature than freshwater.
Prof Nof and his team came up with the theory after studying records of water temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea thousands of years ago, worked out using samples of shells and other animal remains from the bottom.
They calculated the odds of the conditions for springs ice as roughly once in 1,000 years, but said that during Jesus's life the chance would have been more like once in 30 to 160 years.
``As natural scientists, we simply explain that unique freezing processes probably happened in that region only a handful of times during the last 12,000 years,'' Prof Nof said.
``We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the Biblical account.'' The story of Jesus walking on water is recorded in the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark and John.
His disciples were said to be out on the Galilee at night when a storm blew up.
Jesus, who they thought was a ghost, walked to them and got in their boat, after which the storm calmed.
Prof Nof, who also made the headlines in 1992 when he offered a scientific explanation for Moses's parting of the Red Sea, said he was already getting hate email inspired by his latest theory roughly every three minutes.
One message called him ``the most stupid person on the planet'' and hoped that he ``go to hell where you belong''.
The research appears in the Journal of Paleolimnology, a scientific publication that addresses the reconstruction of lake history.