"... who is Jesus that he possesses this power? … Mark and John do not answer, and different audiences may infer different solutions. For example, certain allusions in the text will have been suggestive for audiences familiar with the Septuagint, while references to walking on water in certain magical texts suggest that some may have interpreted the act as the feat of a magician. But, as I have shown here, the description of the miracle rules out the explanations that would first occur to an auditor versed in Greco-Roman mythology: Jesus does not use extraordinary speed or a flying device in this episode. The miracle would thus strike a gentile audience as particularly marvelous and incomprehensible. In fact, insofar as Jesus’s miracle lacks a clear mechanism and thus seems more “impossible” than the feats of his Greco-Roman analogues, it may have also seemed more impressive and perhaps indicative of greater power. But at the very least, the novelty of this miracle story would have encouraged gentile audiences to keep reading or to keep listening in hopes of learning just who this water walker was and how he could perform such a wonder." McPhee: Jesus's Water Walking (JBL, 2016, p.776-7)
