Our Lord's Miraculous Healing of Peter's Hypothermia
11 Apr 2006
According to Doron Nof, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, there is a natural explanation for our Savior’s supernatural stroll on the stormy Sea of Galilee (Matthew 14:22-32). Writing in the Journal of Paleolimnology, Nof suggest that Jesus actually walked on a patch of floating ice that was indistinguishable from the unfrozen water surrounding it.
Although the good professor admits that the possibility of floating ice patches forming on the Sea of Galilee today is "virtually zero" and that there is no historical record of any ice having ever formed on the Sea of Galilee, he still insists that his study of the history of water temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea suggests that such a thing could have happened in Jesus’ day.
If you ask me, it’s the good professor who is walking on thin ice. It takes more faith to believe his harebrained theory than it does to believe that Jesus walked on the water. Besides, the good professor fails to explain how "the ship" was "tossed with waves" on a frozen sea (verse 24) and how the Apostle Peter also walked on the water (verses 28-32).
Did Peter hop out of the boat onto another patch of floating ice? If so, he either fell through the ice or stepped off of it. In either case, our Lord’s rebuke should have been, "Oh you of little ice," not, "Oh you of little faith." In spite of Dr. Nof’s effort to eliminate every element of the miraculous from this event in the life of our Lord, his explanation fails to explain away the miracle of Peter surviving the night rather than dying from hypothermia.
Don Walton
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