Doubt Cast On Bible Claim

Scientists say Jesus may not have walked on water as stated in the Bible but on a type of floating ice.

They believe an isolated patch of so-called Springs ice would have been hard to distinguish from unfrozen water in the Sea of Galilee.

The US teams says, from a distance, someone walking on the ice may appear to be treading 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 what is now known as Lake Kinneret, in northern Israel, when temperatures briefly plummeted.

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.

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.

He 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.

Prof Nof, who 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