Jesus vs. SCIENCE!
Professor uses SCIENCE to explain Jesus' walk on water
MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- 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 theorized 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.
Comments
What happened to Occam's razor?
Also, those "scientists" annoy me. Don't they have anything better to do? I'm sure they do; I am noticing a distinct lack of hover cars in my vicinity.
"How's the ocean doing today?"
"Well, it's still there."
"Alright, see you tomorrow."
If you read the infancy gospel of Thomas, he also possessed some Black Magic, like Polymorph and Death.
This thread is now over.
Title = brilliant, content = interesting, reaction = amusing.
I actually like it when scientists come up with stuff like this.
And don't question their intentions too much Jakey... I read this one account of scientists creating a natural blue rose (appearently a rather big accomplishment in the flower industry) and I ragged on scientists in general to my entire newsroom about screwed up priorities and why haven't we cured cancer?
I made the mistake of not reading the whole article - the guy WAS trying to cure cancer when he made the blue rose discovery. Go figure.
But yeah, are you sure somebody didn't just say that to derail your rant/laugh at your gullibility?
Because blue flowers and cancer seem rather tenuously linked.
* fills image with red *
* inverts *
The opposite of red is cyan! It is slightly blue and slightly green!
I just know that if you're the red team, you always fight the blue team, and visa versa.
Why did you do that?
I did it to prove you right!
I should think you'd be more appreciative.