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Scientists find evidence that Jesus didn’t feed 5,000 people with bread and fish

Published 16:01 6 Jun 2025 BST

Updated 17:17 8 Jun 2025 BST

Erin McLaughlin
Scientists find evidence that Jesus didn’t feed 5,000 people with bread and fish

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Scientists might have debunked the miracle of Jesus feeding 5,000 people with just five loaves and two fish

The famous biblical story of Jesus feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish might not be true according to scientists.

Rather, the 'miracle' is more likely to have been caused by a natural phenomenon.

Researchers have been monitoring the oxygen levels in the water and the wind speed and direction on the surface of Lake Kinneret, famously known as the Sea of Galilee in the New Testament.

The results from the temperature sensors and oxygen monitoring devices allowed them to cross-reference results with historical accounts of fish die-offs: the sudden mass deaths of fish in a particular region.

Answeringgenesis.org's research found periods when winds across the surface of the lake were powerful enough to pull oxygen from its depths.

Due to the lack of oxygen, sudden die-offs could occur. To someone standing on the shore, it just looks like an abundance of fish rising toward the surface, allowing them to 'be easily collected by a hungry populace', as described in the Bible story.

So when Jesus told his disciples, who'd fished all night and caught nothing, to throw their nets on the other side of the lake, their success was more likely to do with a mass die-off, than a biblical miracle.

Matthew 14:13-21 tells the story:

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