Nof Ginosar, Israel—On the shores of the Sea of Galilee, at Nof Ginosar Kibbutz, an ancient boat sits in a modern museum. It is the “Jesus Boat” as it has come to be known, because scientific testing dates the vessel to the time of Christ.

The Man in the Galilee museum where the boat is housed has become a popular destination for tourists who come by the busload in order to view the craft and learn the extraordinary story of its discovery.

Many of those who come are Christian pilgrims, for the Bible records that Jesus often made use of boats during his years of ministry on and around the Sea of Galilee.

It was in the winter of 1986 that two brothers, Moshe and Yuval Lufan, second generation fishermen who lived at Kibbutz Ginosar, were strolling along the muddy shores of the Sea of Galilee. The water level was low that year due to drought.

Yuval says that growing up on the Kinneret, (the Hebrew name for the Sea of Galilee), he used to tell his younger brother, “maybe one day, we will find treasure in the lake,” but other than a few old coins, they’d never discovered anything of much significance.

Until this day.

Looking down, the brothers could see the outline of a boat in the mud. “We said, ‘Wow! We find boat!,’” remembers Yuval in his Hebrew-accented English. “We are jumping, we are dancing. Yes, we are crazy because we find what we are dreaming of,” he relates.
Within two minutes the weather changed. It became stormy and rained hard, Yuval remembers. But the rain stopped quickly and a double rainbow appeared in the sky. The Lufans saw the rainbow as a sign that their discovery might turn out to be an important one. According to the vessel’s web site, http://www.jesusboat.com, the double rainbow heralded to the brothers, “that this boat had been given to them as a gift-binding them to the boat, the water, the earth for everlasting time.”

It took 12 days and nights for members of the Kibbutz, the Israel Antiquities Authority and other volunteers to excavate the vessel, and ten years of testing, conservation and preservation before the boat was ready to be displayed to the public.

Made of 12 different kinds of wood including, cedar from Lebanon, sycamore, laurel and tabor oak, the ancient craft measures nine metres long by 2.5 metres wide and 1.25 metres high.

A series of radiocarbon tests have determined the boat dates to the first century. Scholars believe the boat was used as a ferry or a fishing vessel.
“I not touch the air [for] one year!” Yuval exclaims adding, “I fly!”

Today, almost 20 years after it was first discovered, Yuval says he and his brother call the ancient vessel, “the peace boat,” because since it has been found, the entire area has changed.

The boat has drawn tourists. The tourists have left behind their dollars, thus creating jobs. “All the sea has changed. People are laughing and singing and feeling good,” Yuval says. In thanksgiving, Lufan worked with 38 other local Israeli and Arab artists to create a totem pole to peace. It’s lovely carvings tell the story of another ancient vessel; Noah’s Ark.

It stands beside the sea, says Yuval, like “an antenna to God.”