This passage affirms Jesus' authority over nature (8:26), and if over nature, then over any crisis his followers may face. Many ancient accounts of nature miracles were purely legendary, but these generally surrounded characters of the distant past (compare R. Grant 1986:62) rather than arising when eyewitnesses remained. The tradition behind this particular story is very likely Palestinian, describing in traditional Galilean (contrary to foreign) fashion the Lake of Galilee as a "sea" (v. 24, literally, against the NIV; see Mk 4:39; see Theissen 1991:105-8).