Why Such a Hard Time with Miracles?
April 19, 2006 09:11 AM EST
by Rev. Mark H. Creech

Over the years a number of explanations have been given to explain away Jesus’ walking on the water. Some have argued Jesus wasn’t actually walking on the water but was standing at the lake’s edge in a shallow place. Because the night was cloudy and dark, the disciples only thought they saw Jesus stride across the sea, when actually He didn’t. Others have fancifully argued Christ actually walked across a series of stones in the middle of the lake.

Nevertheless, not to be outdone among the skeptics, Professor Doron Nof of Florida State University claims it may have been ice Jesus stood on and not water. According to a recent article by Reuters, “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. Nof’s 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 … it might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water.”

It’s hard to believe any such theories are ever taken seriously. Yet they often are. Why? Why is it so incredibly hard for some to believe the obvious — a miracle took place? the rest