(Israel21c) Millions of Christian pilgrims visit 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 the Journal 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.