This isn't going to convince a believer not to believe, and nobody's trying to do that. At least, I'm not trying to do that. I personally believe that all these biblical stories are based on some truth.

I'm not trying to provide any information that has to do with theology here. All we've thought is about the natural process. What theologians or anybody else does with that it's their business so to speak.

Since the springs ice is relatively small, a person standing or walking on it may appear to an observer situated some distance away to be walking on water.

The chance that there was ice on the lake is very, very high. It's almost guaranteed during those cold periods, 100 or 200 years long, that there was one such event at least, maybe four.

In today's climate, the chance of springs ice forming in northern Israel is effectively zero, or about once in more than 10,000 years.

This is just what we say could have happened. How that fits into an individual's system of beliefs, I don't know.

We simply explain that unique freezing processes probably happened in that region only a handful of times during the last 12,000 years. We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account.

I get hate e-mail on the average every three minutes.