“Heaven-sent” was the feeling last year as winter rains filled Israel’s reservoirs and the inland lake, the Sea of Galilee.
But 2014 has been a different story, as a severe drought was declared by February.
Israel is 60 percent desert, and for the last 60 years it is has braced itself for dry winters like this one, possibly the driest ever. Yet except for growers of non-irrigated crops, Israel isn’t worried. Since 1948, Israel has planned, forecasted and built infrastructure, policies, research and technologies to withstand drought.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently offered to help California overcome its extreme drought –– affecting about two-thirds of its 38 million residents — using Israeli science, water conservation and desalination technology.
Millions ofChristian pilgrimsvisit Israel every year to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. They follow tour guides on Jerusalem’s Via Dolorosa, hike the Abraham and Jesus trails in the Galilee, and visit Nazareth, where Jesus gave sermons to his followers.
Now there may be a brand-new pilgrimage stop to witness where one of the biggest New Testament miracles took place: where Jesus walked on water.
To date, the exact location of this miracle out at “sea” is not known.
Israel’s newest archeological discovery, practically a stone’s throw from the baptismal site of Jesus on the River Jordan, may provide a clue, though nobody really knows yet what it is.
Israeli researchers led by Prof. Shmulik Marco from Tel Aviv University, who recently reported this discovery in theJournal of Nautical Archaeology, uncovered a third-century BCE mound of stones out in the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret to Israelis).
Come summer, the top of the mound almost pokes out of the water, lending enough space for birds to rest several hundreds of meters out in Israel’s only freshwater lake.
While the mound of stones, conical in shape, and about 70 meters from side to side certainly pre-dates Jesus, Marco tells ISRAEL21c, one of the theories is that the stones may have provided the platform for one of Jesus’ miracles out in a stormy sea where he walked on water and was able to rescue followers.
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