1. Professor of oceanography, Florida State University, Doron Nof in lab 2. Two containers of liquid
3. Nof testing ice on top of fluid, zoom in
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Doron Nof, Professor of Oceanography:
"It could be about maybe 100 feet long, something like that, and that will be only next to the shore. It''s not going to be in the middle of the lake."
5. Various of diagram showing how ice could have formed on the Sea of Galilee
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Doron Nof, Professor of Oceanography:
"How does that tie in and if it is tied in at all to the Biblical story of someone walking on water, I don''t know, but all I''m pointing out is that this ice was there and someone could have walked on it."
7. Various of Nof showing temperature graph
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Doron Nof, Professor of Oceanography:
"I feel that my job as a natural scientist is to tell the society at large what I think could have happened in particular situations. What believers or non-believers do with this information is, kind of, up to them."
9. Reverend Eckard at desk with Bible
10. Pan from face to Bible
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Reverend Rick Eckard, Grace Lutheran Church, Tallahassee:
"It doesn''t change my faith any. I mean, there''s a lot of different scientific theories, but if you''re a person of faith, I think you consider that and I don''t want to pay any disrespect to the science community, but I don''t think they have an explanation for everything and I think it''s interesting that they would go to this length to try to explain this miracle of walking on the water."
12. Various of Eckard reading Bible
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Mike McCarron, Florida Catholic Conference:
"We''re very respectful. We''re intrigued, but we''re also sceptical of those findings."
14. Various of sign reading "Florida Catholic Conference"
STORYLINE:
Jesus walked on water, according to the Bible, but a Florida State University professor says he may have actually walked on a hard-to-see patch of ice.
Doron Nof, a professor of oceanography, said a rare combination of water and atmospheric conditions in the Sea of Galilee two thousand years ago may offer a scientific explanation for one of the miracles recounted in the Bible.
Nof said a patch of ice floating in the Sea of Galilee, which is actually a freshwater lake, would have been difficult to distinguish from unfrozen water surrounding it.
According to the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark and John, Jesus'' disciples were out on the Galilee at night when a storm happened.
Jesus walked to the terrified men, who thought he was a ghost, according to the accounts.
Nof''s research appears in the April issue of the Journal of Paleolimnology, a publication on the reconstruction of lake histories.
Nof''s co-authors are biostatistics professor Ian McKeague of Columbia University and atmospheric science professor Nathan Paldor of Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
They came up with the theory after studying records of long-ago water temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea, based on core samples of shells and other animal remains taken from the bottom.
The records indicated that two lengthy periods 2,500 to 1,500 years ago were chilly enough for ice patches to form during cold spells on the Sea of Galilee, said Nof, a native of Israel.
The unfrozen water surrounding the ice would have come from salty springs along the lake''s western shore, he said.
Salty water freezes at lower temperatures than fresh water.
Some people, including Reverend Rick Eckard of the Grace Lutheran Church in Tallahassee, reacted with scepticism to Nof''s study.
Eckard said the theory was a stretch and kind of funny, but he said it would not change his faith.
keyword-unusual
You can license this story through AP Archive:
Find out more about AP Archive:
0 Comments