"Walking on water is not only not a uniquely Christian idea, it is not even a uniquely Mediterranean one. In the early twentieth century, a professor of Sanskrit at the University of Pennsylvania pointed to numerous and ancient Indian stories of walking on water" (Craig Keener, Miracles, 582). Not to mention that several ancient pagan miracle workers claimed to be able to walk on water, in addition to the Greek culture heroes Euphemus, Orion, and Heracles. Both Poseidon and Neptune are portrayed as traveling along the surface of the sea. Moreover, the Persian King, Xerxes, as well as Antiochus Epiphanes were said to have walked on water.

Indeed, both Greek and Jewish magical papyri have been discovered that explain how magicians can perform the trick of walking on water as a routine part of their craft.