Miracle Boat
The surreal, sometimes comical story behind the discovery of the Jesus Boat.
David Neff | posted 4/22/2010 10:03AM
In 1986, two Israeli fishermen from a kibbutz near Mary Magdalene's hometown made a remarkable discovery: an ancient wooden boat that had plied the Sea of Galilee during the time of Jesus. It had been buried in mud and thus protected from oxygen and hungry microorganisms.
The Yigal Allon Museum now houses the Jesus Boat. The current exhibit is attractive, but unfinished. To attract more visitors (and to help maintain and improve the museum), Christian media executive Don Stillman joined forces with the family of Gonny Kossonogi, daughter of the famous Israeli general Yigal Allon, to form Jesus Boat Inc. In 2009 the group produced a book (The Jesus Boat, by Christian Stillman), a DVD (The Jesus Boat Revealed), a website (JesusBoatMuseum.com), a replica of the boat at the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, and a multimedia tour of American megachurches.
The church presentations, which have continued into 2010, include talks by Kurt Raveh, one of the specialists who supervised efforts to excavate and preserve the boat. On Raveh's recent visit to the United States, David Neff, editor in chief of the Christianity Today Media Group, talked about the discovery with the marine archaeologist, who excavates ancient shipwrecks for the University of Haifa's Department of Maritime Civilizations.
How did you get involved in Israel's marine archaeology?
When the Yom Kippur War started in 1973, Israel asked for volunteers, and I signed up for two weeks. That has become 36 years.
I found myself a beautiful spot on the Mediterranean near Caesarea and the ancient ruins of Dor, King Solomon's major port. I got involved in archaeology there, first as a hobby, then as a profession. I joined the excavations at Tel Dor in the beginning. That excavation is now in its 27th year.
Out in the water, I discovered wrecks. Fishermen had plundered the wrecks and sold items on the black market. So the Israel Department of Antiquities asked Shelley Wachsmann [now at Texas A&M] and me to help create a unit for the protection and study of underwater archaeological remains.
We were pioneers. We had to build everything from scratch. The part of the Mediterranean where we worked had been a major shipping route for 5,000 years. There must have been at least 5,000 shipwrecks we could have found.
Every winter, the southerly storms bring the sand of the Nile all the way up to Haifa. All the sunken ships are under sand, packed very closely so that no microorganisms, Teredo worms, or air come into contact with them. We now have 28 wrecks ranging all the way from the time of King Solomon to Napoleon. It's the largest and best preserved concentration of ancient shipwrecks.
How was the Jesus Boat discovered?
It was a real surprise. After four years of drought, in 1986 the Sea of Galilee had retreated. Two brothers, Jewish fishermen, were walking on the exposed seabed and found coins, pieces of wood, and iron nails. They called us to check into it.
We started cleaning some of the boat, and suddenly we saw the mortise and tenon joints. We found a Roman oil lamp and a Roman cooking pot. It was a boat from Roman times! This is what we had been waiting for.
I'd never been on an excavation where security people protected us, but where we also had an ice cream van and hot dog stands. People came in droves just to watch.
At that moment, there appeared a beautiful double rainbow. It was like a blessing. We danced there like Indians from happiness.
Then the problems started. The wood was completely waterlogged so it was like wet cardboard. Our boss at the Department of Antiquities didn't have equipment. Our group was just two archaeologists, two fishermen, and two others. We had only three buckets and two shovels. An expedition like this normally brings with it a million dollars, a year of preparation, laboratories, and a 40-person professional crew.
April 2010, Vol. 54, No. 4
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
1 of 3
