Jesus was the Son of God and thus he had supernatural abilities as exemplified by the violation of natural laws such as gravity in being able to walk on water. This event was witnessed by many. Reliable eyewitness accounts are sufficient to convict people of murder and rape.
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They are taken into account, but they aren't the best evidence for one side or another to supply. Physical evidence, alibis, confessions are all more important than eyewitness accounts.
Then again, all modern-day cases that use eyewitness accounts are from living people. The things we have mentioning Jesus are all either "I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend who once knew a crazy old guy who once said" type of thing, or were written years after Jesus supposedly died. Not very reliable evidence in any case.
There are only a few text, which copied oral stories, that mention this. Now, its WELL known that as a story is told time and time again, it changes, and it changes vastly. To give a modern example of something "supernatural" upon which we rely on eyewitnesses who's story has changed overtime, look at the Roswell incident. It probably didn't happen, but based upon what people have said, many are willing to, on blind faith and lack of evidence, believe it. It does not a true story make.
Unfortunately for your “argument”, a murder or rape trial would imply that the defendant is still alive, of which he/she certainly would not be after 2000 years.
So since the actual authors of the bible are in semi-dispute, the only reasonable thing to do to prove that Jesus walked on water is to find the body of Jesus and hope he wakes up, have him locate and revive the author of Matthew. Now, once he is alive, we ask him (without jesus in the room as we don’t want him influencing the outcome) whether or not the walking on water bit in the gospel of Matthew was true. He can enter into the witness relocation programme if he feels unduly threatened by the Son of God.
Of course, if Jesus’ body is there then it means he didn’t actually go to heaven, which means he was just a man and in that case, it’s a moot point.
So let’s begin with that, shall we?
Or you could increase your own density or increase the surface tension of the lake.
:O It's the fundies' grand masterplan revealed! They're certainly putting a lot of effort into increasing their density.
Your last sentence actually works against your previous sentences due to your use of the word reliable. None of the biblical witnesses are any more reliable than those in my below ramblings:
Jesus did one better than that, he flew. How do we know this? Because there are eyewitnesses. How do we know there were eyewitnesses? Because I just wrote that there were. Don't bother wasting your time trying to find other sources to confirm this, just take my word that hundreds of people say Jesus put on a nun's hat and flew around Rome, reigning death down upon sinners with his magical wand. You don't believe me? Just ask Bob. He was there oh and what's his face *snaps fingers* Ted...Yeah good old Ted saw it all as well. Of course they both lived and died some 40 odd years before I wrote this...What's that? They would've had to be alive 2000 years ago? Oh...yeah that's what I meant...2000 odd years. My mistake, but hey it's not like we can all get our dates correct like the bible does, right?
Reliable eyewitnesses, you mean, the Gospel writers like Luke and Mark, who never met him personally?. By the way, the walking in the water, by the way, was only witnessed by his apostles and some of his disciples, who would never be considered "reliable", not even 2000 years ago in Palestine. I mean, if you're a Christian like me, you can BELIEVE, but don't try to prove it scientifically. It doesn't work.
But by what standards do you establish the reliability of the witness? You do so by comparing his testominy with the raw facts from the terrain.
For instance: if the testimony says the victim was shot, but no shot wounds are found on the victim, you can question the reliability of the testimony.
Also, it is generally accepted by Christians that Jesus was fully man and fully God. So that means by walking on water, he was simultaneously breaking the laws of nature and not breaking them. How is this possible? Well, because he's God. God can do things even He can't do.
Does this mean we now have to prosecute Mommy for adultery (kissing Santa Claus)? Because I like so totally eyewitnessed that. And I have several witnesses here who want to press charges against an elephant for not being a wall, a rope, a spear....
"This event was witnessed by many."
Suuure, now just let us crossexamine some of them, or failing that, show us that it falls under the exceptions that make hearsay admissable in court...
"Your honor, there are eyewitnesses who can attest that my client walked on water."
"Can you identify them, counselor, and are they here in court?"
"Well I don't have any names or anything, your honor."
"Next case, please."
"Jesus was the Son of God and thus he had supernatural abilities"
Hitler was my son, too, and he could talk very convincingly.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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