Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies 2018, 6(1), 80-110

DOI: 10.24411/2310-2144-2018-00003

How Orion's ability to "walk upon the sea" was attributed to Jesus: the astronomical basis for Christ's sea-walk miracle

John McHugh

Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA; e-mail: jjmchugh72164@comcast.net

Abstract

Irreconcilable differences found in Jesus' "Sea-Walk" narrative imply that it was not based on eyewitness testimony, and therefore must have been founded on some other system of proof. The Christian Gospels confirm that the evangelists envisioned Jesus as the "Anointed-One" and "Son of God" whom had ascended into ouranos, "heaven," a word that also referred to the realm where the deified constellations existed. Circumstantial evidence indicates that the Gospel authors had two celestial forms of history authentication at their disposal. From Greece came the belief in katasterismos, i.e., that the constellations depicted tableaux of miraculous earthly events that had been transferred onto the stars. And from Mesopotamia came the belief that the constellations depicted divine, cuneiform "writing" which imparted inviolable truth through wordplay encrypted in each star-god's name or epithet. While learning the Greek language the evangelists had presumably encountered the pre-Christian, Classical myths which stated that Orion could "walk upon the sea." The article demonstrates that this supernatural feat was founded on astronomical knowledge: when plotted on a star map Orion depicts a deified Man whose outstretched legs convey the idea that he was "walking" upon a celestial "Sea" delineated by the eight, contiguous, aquatic constellations (Dolphin, Goatfish, Southern Fish, Water-pourer, Twin-Fishes, River, Sea Serpent, and Ship). Moreover, wordplay encrypted in the cuneiform titles of Orion yield "Son of God" and "Anointed-One,"- terms that accord precisely with the evangelists' conception of Jesus' identity. We argue that these semantic correlations inspired the evangelists to envision Orion as the embodiment of Jesus and ascribe the constellation's astronomically based sea-walking ability to the founder of Christianity. The article goes on to demonstrate that the setting of Jesus' Sea-Walk miracle corresponds with the celestial landscape surrounding Orion, and that wordplay encrypted in the cuneiform titles of Orion's stellar Sea-Walk tableau correspond with the common themes found in Jesus' Sea-Walk miracle as well as the stories' jarring incongruities.

Keywords: Orion, Jesus, celestial, mythology, katasterism, sea-walk, miracle, heavenly writing, punning, wordplay

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