One of the most fascinating parts of the Bible is the Gospels, where it talks about the life and ministry of Jesus. Within those four accountings of His life, the most fascinating part is the miracles and healings that Jesus did. It seems that everyone has an interest in supernatural power, regardless of their personal beliefs. While there are many who don’t accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, they are still interested in seeing what He did, specifically the miracles that He did.
Yet many people question the accuracy of Scripture, especially those parts which talk about Jesus doing things that we are incapable of doing. These people struggle with the idea of there being a Creator God, often seeing the universe we live in as a series of cosmic accidents.
Nevertheless, their question is a valid one – how can we know that the events recorded in the Bible actually happened? Could those events have been made up by the various authors of the Bible, in an effort to “sell” the idea of Christianity to the world? Is there proof, originating from outside of the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ miracles, that would support their validity?
Is the Bible an Accurate Historical Document?
To start with, the Bible is a historic document. The various books which are included in it were written over a period of over 1,500 years. There are 35 human authors who were involved in the writing, although they were all inspired by God’s Holy Spirit.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness… – 2 Timothy 3:16
As with any historic document, the key academics look for when determining its validity is outside collaboration. That means other evidence that supports what the document says, whether that be written evidence or physical evidence, such as archeological evidence. The more of this evidence that exists, the greater the confidence that honest academics have in the validity of a historic document.
The first level of evidence we have for the validity of the Gospels and their accounting of Jesus’ miracles is the Gospels themselves. Two of the Gospels were written by direct disciples of Jesus, who would have had the opportunity to be eyewitnesses of the events they recorded. Of the other two, the book of Mark was written by Mark, who was a disciple of Peter, one of the original disciples and a witness to the events described in the Gospel. The other Gospel, Luke being written by Luke, the doctor, who was a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul. As such, his accounting would be the only one which was not within one step removed of an eye witness, although it is possible that he heard some of what he wrote from one of the other apostles. That’s something we don’t know.
At the second level of evidence, we have the writings of the other books included in the New Testament. Many of those give testimony to the miracles that Jesus did, although they do not specifically talk about Him walking on water. In the book of Acts, Peter makes reference to the miracles of Jesus, in his first sermon:
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know. – Acts 2:22
Peter was a direct disciple of Jesus, as well as one of the principal leaders of the Early Church. That made him another eyewitness to the miracles that Jesus performed. He isn’t the only one though, who testified to the miracles that Jesus performed, the author of Hebrews, a book written specifically to the Jews, also testified to Jesus’ miracles.
God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will? – Hebrews 2:4
Interestingly, even though Paul wrote most of the books of the New Testament, he doesn’t talk about any of Jesus’ miracles. There could be various reasons for this; but it is likely to be nothing more than Paul’s personal integrity as a teacher. He had been a Pharisee and a well-respected one, before his Damascus Road encounter with the Lord. That changed him from a skeptic, to one of the most ardent supporters and preachers of the faith. Yet, he was not a direct witness of any of those miracles, so he refrained from writing about them, leaving that to those who did.
Even so, there were many others who chose to write about the miracles that Jesus performed, even though they were not witnesses to His miracles. Roughly 100 writings from the Early Church fathers still exist today, written by highly regarded men of the cloth. These writings all talk about the work of Jesus, in various regards; some mentioning His miracles and others not mentioning them.
Jesus is even talked about extensively in the Quran, the holy book of Islam. He is mentioned by name a total of 98 times, in 93 verses. On seven different occasions the Quran refers to him as the “Spirit of God.” If Muslims, who can be seen as the holders of a “competing religion” mention Him so many times in their scriptures, it is clear that He existed as a historic figure.
Looking for other evidence, there is a large body of architectural evidence that supports the Bible in general. Many places and events mentioned in Scripture are proven to have existed by this evidence, giving credence to the validity of the Bible in its entirety. Some of those places were thought to be either made up or lost, before their remains were discovered. While those discoveries don’t prove that Jesus did the miracles that the Bible says He did, they do support the accuracy of the events recorded in the Bible.
The Physics of Walking on the Water
From a purely scientific point of view, what Jesus did was impossible. That’s what makes it a miracle. Humans are not capable of walking on water. Yet, not only did Jesus do it, but Peter did so as well, once Jesus told him to.
The science here is fairly straightforward. Boats are able to float because the amount of water they displace weighs more than the boat itself and its contents. If the boat weighed more than the water it displaced, it would sink. That’s what submarines do, controlling just how far the sink by carefully adjusting the amount of seawater in their ballast tanks, essentially moving the overall weight of the submarine from just below that of the water the sub is displacing, to just above that weight.
That doesn’t help Jesus or anyone else have the ability to walk on water. Humans don’t have ballast tanks, eliminating that possibility. While our body density is just lighter than water, allowing us to float on water, that only works when we are lying flat on our backs. Then, most of our body will be underwater, with just a little bit, like our face, being above the surface of the water. Even swimming, which is a combination of floating and propelling ourselves through the water, is nothing like walking on it.
The joke is always that all we need is to have a row of hidden stones, under the water, in order to walk on the surface. While that makes for good comics, those comics didn’t exist in the time of Jesus. We could say the same about the other joke, that Jesus could have walked on the water if it was frozen. People in cold climates do that all winter long; but the Sea of Galilee is too close to the equator to make that a possibility.
Speaking of the Sea of Galilee, it might have been easier for Jesus to walk on the water if he had been on the Dead Sea, which has a sodium chlorine concentration of an amazing 33.7 percent. That high salt concentration would increase the buoyancy of anything on the surface… but even then, it wouldn’t have been enough to support Jesus’ walking on it. Besides, He walked on the Sea of Galilee, not the Dead Sea.
A number of years ago, the television show MythBusters tackled the idea of walking, or more correctly running, on the water, not due to Jesus’ walking on water, but due to how many ninja movies showed someone running across the surface of the water. The premise was supposedly that if they ran fast enough, the surface tension of the water would keep them afloat. After several tries, the MythBuster team did find a way of doing it, by adding cornstarch to the water.
Cornstarch does some interesting things when made wet. While they needed much more cornstarch than water, it gave the appearance of walking on water. If someone tried to step gently on it, they would sink in. But when something strikes the surface of the water and cornstarch mixture, its viscosity changes and it is able to support the weight of a full-sized person.
Of course, this wouldn’t have worked for Jesus in the Sea of Galilee. I’m not sure how many gallons of water the Sea holds, but it would be impossible to find enough cornstarch, let alone mix it into the sea effectively. Besides, Jeus walked on the Sea of Galilee, He didn’t run across it.
It Must Have Been a Miracle
Since there is plenty of historic evidence to back up the validity of the Bible and since there is no scientifically known way that Jesus could have walked on the water, the only answer is that it was a miracle. Not really surprisingly Jesus used some supernatural spiritual power to overcome natural laws.
When we use the word “supernatural,” there’s a tendency to think in terms of something spooky; but in reality, supernatural merely means that it is something that is not natural. More specifically, something supernatural is when something natural is operating in a way that is not natural.
The Bible is full of supernatural events, both in the Old and New Testaments. It’s not just Jesus who performed them. When the nation of Israel needed to Cross the Red Sea, God directed Moses to hold his staff out over the water. A strong wind rose up, parting the water, so that the people could pass over on dry ground (Exodus 14:16, 21). Just to confound those who say that it was actually the “Reed Sea,” instead of the Red Sea, and that it was shallow, God gave proof that the water was deep. Once the people had passed over, God instructed Moses to stretch his staff out over the water again and the sea closed, drowning the army of Pharoah (Exodus 14:27-28). If the water was only a couple of feet deep, then it was quite a miracle that Pharoah’s army drowned, horses and all.
Or how about the time that ravens brought food to Elijah, when he was hiding in a cave in the mountains? Ravens look for food all the time; but they aren’t known for bringing it to feed people. Yet in this case they did (1 Kings 7:6), twice a day, because God commanded them to (1 Kings 17:4).
The Bible can easily be seen as a book of supernatural incidents, as they appear throughout. To try and catalogue all the supernatural events in the Bible would be a considerable task. But should we expect anything less from a book that talks about God? Should we expect anything less from God Himself, than that He would be performing miracles?
We don’t really know how many miracles Jesus performed during His ministry, as not everything He did was recorded in the Gospels. As John said, at the end of his Gospel, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.” (John 21:25).
Walking on Water
Walking on water was significant, in that it showed that Jesus had power over the natural world, including the laws of physics, just like when He rebuked the storm (Matthew 8:23-27). This event is important, as it is also shown in the Gospels of Mark (4:35-41) and Luke (8:22-25). As the creator of the universe, it makes sense that He would have power over the earth that He created; but He still needed to prove it to those who saw Him, so that they would know who He was.
Now when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea; and He (Jesus) was alone on the land. 48 Then He saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them. Now about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by. – Mark 6:47-48 (also Matthew 14:24-25; John 6:19)
The first thing I would like to note here is the importance of this story. One of the ways in which we can determine the importance of something mentioned in the Bible, whether a word, phrase or story, is by how many times it is repeated. To have this story repeated in three of the Gospels, including the Gospel of John, which doesn’t contain many things that are in the other Gospels, shows that it is important.
The second thing I’d like to point out is the last phrase in the quoted portion above – “would have passed them by.” Mark apparently remembered this incident slightly differently than Matthew and John, as he is the only one to say this. Both of those other Gospels talk about Jesus walking out to them. This difference could have been nothing more than a matter of perception; but it seems significant that it was mentioned by Mark. With that being the case, it seems that Jesus could have been trying to ensure that they saw Him walking on the water, rather than just trying to reach them.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus goes farther than just walking on the water, thanks to Peter and his oversized mouth. When Peter saw Jesus, he asked for proof that it was in fact Him, asking Jesus to extend his miracle to include Peter as well.
And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” 29 So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!” 31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” – Matthew 14:28-31
It is one thing for Jesus to walk on water Himself, but quite another for Him to call Peter out on the water to walk there with Him. Although Peter did sink, that was through no fault of Jesus, but rather because Peter took his eyes off of Jesus and focused instead on the wind and the waves. That was enough for his fear to overcome his faith and he began to sink.
There are two significant things that must be taken into account here. First, when Jesus came to earth and was born of Mary, He left His divinity behind. While He was still very much God, He didn’t operate as God; but rather as a man inspired by God. That’s important, as you and I wouldn’t be able to do anything He did, if He did it as God. He confirms this in the same place where He mentions the second thing that’s significant is that Jesus only did what He saw His Father in heaven doing (John 5:19). So, both Jesus and Peter walked on the water due to the power of Father God.
This shows us something important for our own lives. That is, we are not limited by natural laws; but rather by our faith in God. While that may not mean that we can walk on water, it does mean that we are not limited by natural things, especially when the spiritual is at stake. God might not make it possible for us to walk on water, because He would see that we only wanted that for our own glory. But He might empower us to heal the sick or give a word of prophecy that provides a benefit to someone else. In either case, it would have to be something that brings glory to God, not to us.
God is all-powerful, so supernatural acts are as natural to Him, as breathing is to us. His allowing Jesus to walk on water, in order to prove who He was to His disciples, makes sense in that regard. But God does not allow His power to be used in order to bring glory to anyone but Him. It would be improper for any of us to expect God to allow us to walk on water, just to make ourselves look like we are as spiritual and as powerful as Jesus.