Scientists are not fishing in this.
New research has provided a “reliable scientific basis” for two of Jesus Christ’s most iconic and biblically recorded miracles – along with a timeline for one of them – that took place on the Sea of Galilee, known today as Israel’s Lake Kinneret.
The study shows a precedent for the mass killing of fish – due to the lack of oxygen in the water – potentially allowing the historical figure Christ to perform two separate acts: the “Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes” and later the “Miracle of the Catch of the Fish”. .
“Current understanding of physical limnology [ecosystem] of Lake Kinneret can provide a reliable scientific basis for these miracles”, write the authors of the study.
Both Gospel-based events—in the area of the northwest seashore around Tabgha—involved the holy figure creating an abundance of fish for his disciples when they ran out of food.
The later incident – described in John’s Gospel after Christ’s resurrection – saw the followers’ nets “filled with 153 large fish, but even with so many the nets were not torn”.
The team suggests that strong winds blew up lower water levels, leading to an anoxic – or oxygen-deprived – condition that eventually suffocated the fish, causing them to rise to the surface, extremely easy to net. – and literally dead in the water.
“The Sea of Galilee is a layered lake. The upper layer is warm and oxygenated, while the lower layer is cold and lacks oxygen,” researcher Yael Amitai told The Times of Israel.
Comparable modern “fish kill” events have occurred since the 1990s – and as recently as last year in the Tzalmon estuary of the sea – through research, which used 3D modeling to scan the lake.
The natural but still rare phenomenon “could explain the appearance of large numbers of easy-to-gather fish near the shore described in biblical accounts,” the report added.
Similar events were also observed in Lake Erie and the Neuse River Estuary of North Carolina.
Regarding the Loaves and Fishes tale, scholars believe that this revelation about the killing of the fish provides a more precise time for the event in which Christ converted five loaves and two fish into enough food for about 5,000 followers, according to the Gospel of Matthew. .
That miracle—the only one recorded in all four canonized Gospels—most likely occurred in late spring or early summer, because rapid temperature changes as the water deepened at that time would have brought more dead fish. on the surface.
The report follows unrelated research that the Shroud of Turin was likely not used to wrap Christ’s mortal remains.
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