by There could be a fairly simple scientific explanation behind one of Jesus’ most famous miracles, recent research has revealed. It appears that the fishy occurrences (in all senses of the word) in the Sea of Galilee may be the result of a curious natural phenomenon.
The Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Galilee or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel that features prominently in the Bible. The northwest bank is thought to be associated with a number of Jesus’ miracles: The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes and The Miraculous Catch of Fish. In the first story, five loaves of bread and two small fish fed 5,000 people. In the second time, the apostles were fishing in vain until Jesus told them to cast their nets one last time, after which they were rewarded with a large catch.
Were these “miracles” really the work of Christ, or is there a more logical, scientific explanation? According to the new research, probably the latter.
“Today, fish kill events occur at the same location in the lake where the Biblical miracle of loaves and fishes and presumably the miraculous catch of fish took place two millennia before the present,” the team wrote in their study. “[This] may explain the appearance of large numbers of easily collected fish close to shore described in the Biblical accounts.”
The researchers identified two events, in May and June 2012, in which thousands of dead fish floated to the surface. Using three-dimensional models, they worked out a potential mechanism underlying this large fish kill in the lake: the upwelling of oxygen-poor water, which reached the surface near the shore and caused the fish to suffocate.
Lake Kinneret only mixes from top to bottom once a year. In summer it is divided into layers: a warm top layer, a cooler bottom layer and an intermediate layer with a strong temperature gradient separating the two. Westerly winds generate internal waves in the lake, which in turn force colder, oxygen-poor water from the lower layers to the surface. If this upwelling occurs shortly after the layers have formed, which happens in March/April, the fish will no longer be able to escape from the oxygen-poor water and would suffocate at the surface.
In Lake Kinneret, such cases of fish kills caused by upwelling internal waves are rare. Apart from the 2012 events, the authors can only recall two others, one in April 2007 and one in the early 1990s – all of which took place in the same geographical location, near Tabgha.
Similar events leading to fish kills have been documented in other locations, including Lake Erie, the mouth of the Neuse River, North Carolina and Hamilton Harbor, Canada – and could also explain Jesus’ “miracles,” the authors claim research.
“Our study suggests a location and time frame for the Biblical miracles near Tabgha, documented in the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, and the miraculous catch of fish,” they conclude.
“It is possible that similar fish kills, or even just concentration of live fish near the shore in case of partial upwelling, occurred at the same spot on the shore of Lake Kinneret as early as two millennia ago.”
The study was published in the journal Water Resources Research.
