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Topics: History, Science, World News
Joe Harker
According to a team of scientists, one (or perhaps two) of Jesus Christ's miracles might actually have been true.
Whether or not you think he was the son of God, and also God himself, historians tend to be pretty convinced that he was an actual guy.
It helps to live during a period of history where people write things down; you might wonder what the Romans have ever done for us, but they did write quite a lot of things down, and their historians also mention Jesus long before the Roman Empire converted to Christianity.
So yes, he was almost certainly a real guy, but as for some of the things he did, there's more a matter of debate about how he did it.
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However, when it comes to the story of the 'miraculous catch of fish' and the miracle Jesus performed, there a scientific explanation is possible.
There's actually two stories in the Bible of this miracle, though the pertinent details of Jesus and his apostles trying to fish on the Sea of Galilee and having a bit of a mare remain the same.
In each story, they're about to give up when Jesus tells them to have another go at it, and then, after throwing out the fishing net again, they catch loads of fish.
Luke (of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) wrote that this happened early on in the career of Mr Christ, whereas, according to John, it happens after the J-man came back from the dead for our right to eat chocolate eggs in Spring, and they specifically caught 153 fish.
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Not to burst the ecumenical bubble here, but this is where a potential scientific explanation for catching loads of fish on the Sea of Galilee comes in.
Researchers from Kinneret Limnological Laboratory have been studying the Sea of Galilee and found a layer of colder water that is depleted in oxygen.
Wind and waves can cause this deeper layer of water to rise, and fish can't get out of it, and this oxygen-depleted water also kills them.
If this happens, then you can get lots of dead fish very quickly, and they'd be incredibly easy to scoop up in a net in the event that your pal Jesus suggests you have one last attempt to catch something.
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Researchers found that these 'fish-kill events' happen around the same spot on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus performed his two aforementioned miracles, which could help explain why him and the apostles were suddenly able to make a great catch.