In 1986 a drought dropped the Sea of Galilee and two fishermen brothers from Kibbutz Ginosar spotted a buried hull in the mud near Magdala. The rescue excavation (Shelley Wachsmann, Israel Antiquities Authority) lifted it out in twelve days and nights before the lake rose again. The hull is 8.27 by 2.3 meters (about 27 × 7.5 ft), flat-bottomed for working close inshore; radiocarbon put its timbers at 40 BC ± 80 years, and its cedar planking holds about ten different wood species: a hard-used working boat, patched with whatever timber was at hand. A boat of this class carried a crew plus a dozen or more passengers, the size the Gospel boat scenes assume (Mark 4:35–41). Label the link honestly: nothing connects this particular boat to Jesus or his disciples, it is a boat of the type, the lake, and the decades.
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- Mark 4:35bsb
When that evening came, He said to His disciples, “Let us cross to the other side.”
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