Alon Kossonogi is part of the family that established the Yigal Allon Museum. In fact his grandfather was Yigal Allon and he was part of the core team that brought about the founding of the State of Israel. The museum was established in Kibbutz Ginosar in honor of Allon. His friends and supporters wanted it to be a way to educate people about Israel and the specific area where the Museum is located.

After the “Jesus Boat” was excavated it was placed in the Museum for all to see. A few years later a film was made about the discovery and excavation of the boat. Its title is “The Jesus Boat Revealed” and it was released on DVD on March 10, 2010. The film tells the background and impact of “The Jesus Boat.”

Talking with Alon Kossonogi I learned his family was very much involved in the creation of the film, with Alon serving as the Executive Producer. “We wanted it to tell the whole story about the discovery and then the excavation. There were a lot of problems to overcome at every step,” he said. “There were also miraculous things that happened.”

When asked about “the miracles”, he replied. “The boat was found in the Sea of Galilee which is full of fresh water. A boat that had been sunk there should have lasted no more than fifty to sixty years. All the material of the boat should have been destroyed but the carbon dating tests placed the boat back to the time of Christ.

Something else that occurred was when they were excavating the boat the drought broke and there was rain in abundance. When there was a break in the weather there was a double rainbow in the sky over the Sea of Galilee and those are very rare. It was like a sign from God,” he continued. “The rainbows and the end of the drought were pretty special occurrences.”

Alon told me there had been people opposed to calling the boat “The Jesus Boat.” “Some just wanted to call it the ‘Galilee Boat’ and not bring Jesus into it. Others though felt the boat was from Jesus’ time and it was located in an area where Jesus was known to have lived. I mean we aren’t calling it ‘The Jesus Boat’ because it has to be a boat that belonged to Jesus. We are just saying it is a boat from Jesus’ time.”

Alon said his family wanted the movie made to show the story of the fishermen finding the boat, the excavation of the boat, and the placing of it in the museum. “When it came time to excavate the boat there was no money to pay for trained workers to come in and do it. The people who did it were all volunteers. That is another one of the miraculous things that happened.”

Talon added that the story of the “volunteers” is shown in the film along with interviews with the fishermen and with people who have worked on the project of getting the boat restored. There are also options presented as to what the boat really represents. Is it a boat that Jesus used or was it one used by his disciples? Or was it a boat used during a battle between the Romans and the Jews around the time of Christ? It is left up to the individuals who see the film to make their own determination.

The DVD is available through Amazon.com and also through jesusboatshop.com. When asked if there are plans to do follow up movies Alon answered, “There has been talk of a feature film or maybe an animated film of some kind. There are a lot of things we are considering. But the important thing right now is to get the word out about the documentary which is ‘The Jesus Boat Revealed’.”

Was the discovery and reclamation of the Jesus Boat a miracle? You will have to watch the film and make up your own mind. Alon knows what he thinks but each individual must find his or her own answers.

When they had uncovered the boat to look at it, it was clear that the timbers were extremely waterlogged. The hull of the boat looked, at first glance, to be in fairly decent shape, but the wood had a soggy, spongy and crumbly texture to it. If one were to touch the wood, it would feel like wet cardboard, barely holding together. Over the nearly 2,000 years the boat had sat under the mud, most of the wood cells in the frames and planking had been replaced by water.

Dr. Raveh and Dr. Wachsmann still needed to execute the initial investigation of the boat before they could make any final, official recommendations to the Department of Antiquities. Before they could do that, the group had to get licenses from that same Department in order to legally work on the boat. It took about a week for the licenses to come through, and once the documentation came, they were able to begin the trial excavation.

During the recovery, an oil lamp, a cooking pot, and some additional potsherds were found, but all of them were found outside of the boat. The boat had not been carrying a cargo when the mud had buried it. Because of the proximity of the pottery the excavators could give a rough estimate of when the ship was in use, but accurate confirmation of the boat’s age would have to wait until some of the timbers could be tested using the Carbon-14 dating method.

During this preliminary rescue excavation, a film crew from the Israeli Television Authority came on site to record footage of the dig. It had been agreed that they would not release any of their footage until the boat was announced to the press. A four year drought had preceded the discovery, so the boat was buried in the mud. This was to keep the excavation difficult, but the rains had returned, so the plan was to keep the boat’s discovery quiet until the water level had risen again.

As it turned out however, the story was leaked, bringing the entire global media down upon this chaotic scene of growing interest, intrigue and very high drama. What followed over an incredibly short eleven-day rescue period is considered to be nothing short of a miracle. Consider these examples:
Following a period of prolonged drought, a double rainbow shone above the boat at the very moment it was discovered.

An extremely rare “moonbow” (a lunar rainbow, created by light reflecting off the moon’s surface) appeared to Dr. Cohen during the rescue. The long drought-parched Galilee region was deluged with rain almost immediately upon the boat’s discovery. During the rescue, major “political,” personal and scientific conflicts were quickly settled; the seemingly impossible race against the clock was won; the shortages of money, manpower, and workable rescue solutions were solved; and never before seen cooperation and assistance was rendered continuously from kibbutz members, workers, sponsors, and government agencies.


And then we have this key fact: If this boat had been discovered even thirty years earlier than 1986, the basic scientific knowledge necessary to rescue and permanently preserve this boat would not have existed. Despite these odds, the fact that this 2,000 year-old boat is on exhibit today must be seen as a miracle!