As a rule, I don't write on purely religious topics. But I do take religion seriously. Every once in a while, one of those stories bubbles up that demands a response because they are so stupidly wrong that, given the number of imbeciles running free, it is dangerous.
Since the late eighteenth century, there has been a string of scholars who have attempted to reduce Christianity to a single messianic, albeit very human figure, that would be Jesus Christ, upon whom a vast mythology has been built. In this telling, Jesus existed, but He was just a man, and his followers built upon Him a Christology that transformed Him into a divine figure after His death. Assaults have been made on this anti-Christian pursuit, most notably by Oxford professor C. S. Lewis and his "liar, lunatic, or Lord" formulation.
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."
The response to that has come along two separate tracks. There is a school of theologians who assert that Jesus never claimed to be divine. Divinity was, they say, an attribute foisted upon the "historical Jesus" by the First-Century Church. Why theologians would devote their professional lives to attacking the "theos" of the world's premier religion and the underpinning of civilization as we know it is a question for them to answer. That school is assisted by people like the high-functioning morons of the "Jesus Seminar," who go through the Bible tossing out inconvenient parts in their quest for, again, the "historical Jesus."
A second line of attack has been conducted by "scientists" who are hellbent, literally, on proving that Biblical miracles are merely natural phenomena misunderstood by the bug-eating primitives seeing them. Moses parting the Red Sea didn't happen in the Red Sea and was simply a strong wind and storm surge. The demon-possessed people Jesus cures? Epileptics. The dead daughter of the temple official and the dead son of the widow? Like Monty Python's "Norwegian Blue," they were just pining for the fjords, and the locals, who dealt with death every day, up close and personal, were mistaken.
In a way, this latter type of numbskullery is worse than the first. It is easy to laugh at academics making fools of themselves, but scientists proffering "explanations" for miracles have a certain credibility. I mean, the science is settled, right?
This past week, the New York Post ran a story titled "Two of Jesus Christ's biggest miracles may be science, not divine, new study claims" that seems to be based on an October 2024 paper in "Water Resources Research" titled: "Seiche‐Induced Fish Kills in the Sea of Galilee—A Possible Explanation for Biblical Miracles?" The journal article makes the rather extraordinary claim, in the course of examining fish kills in the Sea of Galilee, that a natural effect was the basis of the Miracle of Loaves and Fishes and the Miraculous Catch of Fish. According to the paper, Christ didn't break the fish and distribute them; rather, the crowd gathered up dead fish and chowed down.
The team suggests heavy winds churned lower levels of the water, leading to an anoxic — or oxygen-deprived — state that eventually suffocated the fish, making them rise to the surface, remarkably easy to net — and literally dead in the water.
“The Sea of Galilee is a stratified lake. The upper layer is warm and oxygenated, while the lower layer is cold and lacks oxygen,” researcher Yael Amitai told The Times of Israel.
Comparable modern “fish kill” events have happened since the 1990s — and as recently as last year in the sea’s Tzalmon estuary — per the research, which used 3D modeling to scan the lake.
The natural but still rare phenomenon “may explain the appearance of large numbers of easy-to-collect fish close to the shore described in the biblical narratives,” the report added.
There are some problems with that theory. First and foremost, there were two instances in which Christ multiplied loaves and fish to feed the crowd. This is the Gospel of Mark 8:16.
16 They said to one another, “It is because we have no bread.” 17 And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” They said to him, “Twelve.” 20 “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 21 Then he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”
The three synoptic Gospels have basically the same version. It is late in the day, everyone is hungry, and one of the disciples recommends sending the crowd away to buy food. Jesus asks what food they have, and He is told five loaves and two fish. John's Gospel was richer in detail, as he was probably an eyewitness. According to John, Andrew produces the food they have, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” This has given rise to the "Miracle of Sharing," nonsense pushed by leftists. Here, the crowd is shamed by the boy offering up his small store of food, and they give up the food they have hidden, and in the end, everyone is fed—no miracle, just Marxist "to each according to his needs" garbage.
There is no mention of the crowd running down to the beach to pick up dead fish. Before moving forward, I'd like to say I've known of guys in rural Pennsylvania who go out in the morning looking for fresh roadkill deer to dress and butcher. I suspect the same kind of guy lives in rural Louisiana. None of them would touch a dead deer lying in a field. I've never heard of anyone, and I say this having served in Korea, who would pick dead fish out of the water or off the beach and eat them. It beggars the imagination to believe that thousands of First Century Jews, governed by some pretty strict dietary laws, could be convinced to pick up dead fish for dinner.
The Bible doesn't shy away from God using natural means to create miracles. The quail arriving at dusk to feed the Israelites in the desert would've provided a metaphorical base for Jesus to tell the crowd to police up the dead fish. He doesn't do that. Instead, He breaks the fish. Have you ever tried to break a dead fish? It isn't easy, though I suppose with a twisting and pulling motion, what works on a chicken's neck would work on a dead fish. Breaking the fish indicates it was probably smoked, dried, or salted, which makes sense as someone in the crown had brought it along. Even with the raw fish theory, there are a couple of other holes. Firewood is not easy to come by for thousands of people in that area, and there is no record, as far as I can tell, of First Century Jews eating sashimi. The paper doesn't address how the loaves fit into the fish kill theory, which is just as well, though not as amusing as including them would have been.
Much the same applies to the story of the Miraculous Catch of Fish. Like the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, there are two miraculous catches of fish. One, detailed in Luke's Gospel, occurs during Jesus' public ministry.
4 And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, 7 they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8
The second takes place after the Resurrection, which can also be explained, as the Pharisees did, by claiming the guards fell asleep and Jesus' disciples stole his body, and is chronicled by John.
4 Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, “Children, have you any fish?” They answered him, “No.” 6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, for the quantity of fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved[a] said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his clothes, for he was stripped for work, and sprang into the sea. 8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards[b] off.
9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and although there were so many, the net was not torn.
`In neither case does Jesus tell his disciples to scoop up the dead fish off the surface. And Jesus cooks the fish they bring ashore.
I'm truly agnostic on fish kills in the Sea of Galilee and its surroundings. More than agnostic, I really don't give a crap. And I really don't care if you deny the divinity of Christ. We are all called to Him, and if reject Him, that's ultimately on you. But when you take a minor research paper and misuse the life of Christ to get attention, then you've shown yourself to be a deeply dishonest person.
The miracles in the New Testament were not recorded by imbeciles, and thousands witnessed them. You are welcome to deny all of the New Testament as mythology, but you are not free to make up nonsensical pseudo-scientific explanations for phenomena when you've obviously never read the document you're critiquing and expect not to be mocked.
