Jesus Boat Recovery

With the go-ahead they had received from Dr. Raveh and Dr. Wachsmann’s pronouncement that the boat was ancient, the initial group of rescuers made contact with the Israeli Department of Antiquities. Everyone involved knew that a great treasure had been found, and it needed to be excavated and preserved immediately.

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 Over the nearly 2,000 years the boat had sat under the mud, most of the wood cells in the frames and planking had been replaced by water.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!