Search

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.

In a recent article the author has shown that Pegasus' appearance in Greek astronomy - as a Flying Horse severed at the navel - displays a one-to-one correlation with wordplay encrypted in its older, Mesopotamian title as the "Field". The current article expands on this idea, demonstrating that additional wordplay encrypted in the cuneiform terms for the Mesopotamian "Field" constellation embodied in the Pegasus Square and an adjacent star-figure imparted the words: "Medusa ('Ruling'), Perseus, cut-off, her, skull, leaped-forth, Chrysaor ('Golden-Sword'), the horse, named, Pegasus ('Springs'), because, he-was-born, near, the springs, of, the god, Ocean", - words which mirror the creation story of Pegasus in Theogony lines 280-282. Additional puns expose the celestial identity of the Greek god Ocean, while simultaneously disclosing why he was incongruously identified as a "River" in Greek mythology. Cuneiform literature confirms that the Mesopotamian astronomer was a "writer" whose overarching precept held that the constellations comprised a sacred "text" that imparted inviolable wisdom through the medium of wordplay. Archaeological and textual data insinuates that this Mesopotamian celestial conviction was transmitted directly into the Hellenic cultural sphere in the eight century BC. And circumstantial evidence implies that the first author to mention Pegasus, Hesiod, was directly or indirectly familiar with this Mesopotamian astronomical arcana prior to writing Theogony. The author's conclusion argues that the aforementioned Mesopotamian celestial esoterica allowed Hesiod, or someone collaborating with him, to decipher the strand of puns that explained Pegasus' mythical "Birth" story, which he then rendered into Greek as lines 280-282 of Theogony.

Many of the Greek constellations catalogued in Claudius Ptolemy's mid-second century Almagest originated in Mesopotamia. Yet numerous other Greek constellations and asterisms do not correspond to Mesopotamian prototypes, and simultaneously display bizarre or incongruous features. This is especially apparent in Pegasus, a winged Horse severed at the navel; Crater, the "Wine-Bowl" stationed upon the back of Hydra, the "Water-Snake"; Cancer, a "Crab" that carries a "Manger" and "Donkeys" upon its shell; and Argo, the "Swift" Ship that sails backwards through the night sky without a prow. Because the aforementioned star-figures cannot be traced to Mesopotamian originals most historians of astronomy have assumed they are either indigenous Greek inventions or the creations of seafaring civilization that had direct contact with Greece. This article presents seminal research that offers a more elegant possibility, namely, that the origin of the aforementioned constellations and asterisms was indeed Mesopotamia, and can be traced to arcane precepts that informed the astronomers of that land. Cuneiform texts confirm that Mesopotamian astronomers were literally "writers" who envisioned the starry sky as "heavenly writing" that divulged inviolable truth through the medium of wordplay. In Mesopotamia the Pegasus Square was known as the "Field," and puns encrypted in its cuneiform spellings divulged that the Field be "changed into" a "flying horse severed at the navel"; wordplay in Hydra's cuneiform title disclosed that a "wine-bowl" be "placed upon the back of the "water-snake"; double entendre in Cancer's cuneiform appellative imparted that a "manger" and "two donkeys" be "placed between the shoulders of the crab"; and punning in the Mesopotamian prototype for Argo divulged that these stars were a "divine ship named "Swift" which had its "prow cut off" and sailed "backward" through the southern sky. Circumstantial evidence implies that the Mesopotamian perception of the stars as a divine "text" that divulged enlightenment via puns had been transmitted directly to the Hellenic world at the inception of Greek alphabetic writing in the mid-eighth century BC. And it was this Mesopotamian celestial wisdom that inspired Greek astronomer-poets to reconfigure the preceding star-figures into the irrational images described by the puns.