The Celestial Code of Scripture: The Astral Cipher Underlying the Miracle Stories of the Bible and Qur'an

by John McHugh

While researching celestial mythology at Brigham Young University, John McHugh stumbled upon the arcane code that is the template for the legends and miracles in all Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scriptures. This code was embedded in the archaic Mesopotamian belief system that conceptualized the astral sky as the “heavens,” and its constellations and planets as deities inhabiting this divine realm. Celestial tableaux were understood as historical scenes that had once taken place on earth. Mesopotamian astronomers were regarded as magicians, the magi, whose task was to interpret and elaborate secretly on this “Heavenly Writing”— the literal writing of the gods. The Celestial Code of Scriptures is the first book to present and explain this secret Mesopotamian cipher.

452 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 14, 2021

Reviews

[Daniel Suelo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Archaeoastronomer John McHugh is a pioneer, breaking new ground, showing how the stories in the Bible and Quran, as well as Greek mythology, are taken directly from the ancient constellations of Sumer and Babylon, through wordplay, with his understanding of cuneiform and ancient languages!

In the beginning, it sounds like he's stretching things with far-fetched word-pun associations (which might be a big reason scholars aren't taking this seriously). But then he keeps showing verifiable example after example until you see it's way too much to be coincidence! This "far-fetched" pun association is how the ancients thought. As any Hebrew Bible scholar can see, the Bible is rife with puns, totally missed in English translations.

You can even easily verify his information with all the free online cuneiform, Sumerian, Akkadian, Hebrew, Arabic and Greek dictionaries.

Plus, he's confirming my own findings and hunches after my own decades of amateur study, research, and meditation into religion, mythology, and etymology, which blows me away. It's opening a whole new vista. I'm certain these constellation-pun principles apply to most, if not all, world mythology, literate and illiterate (I'm thinking of the Flood story found all over the world, which I'm sure is an evolving constellation word-play from one culture/language to another, not just the Middle East and Europe).

However, I will say his constant repetitions and trying too hard to make it sound exciting, and interjecting his opinions rather than just sticking with his researched facts could be off-putting to many, possibly turning away lots of potential readers. In a lot of ways he's dissecting a flower so much we lose sight of its profound beauty, the beauty and truth at the core of mythology that Joseph Campbell points out. Both religious fundamentalists and non-religious logisticians tend to believe that if something isn't literal it isn't true, which strips life of poetic beauty.

But, whatever, archaeoastronomer John McHugh is pioneering new ground, which cancels out any other issues I have with his style. Therefore, I whole-heartedly give this book 5 stars! I'm totally amazed how little fanfare this is getting so far!

I'm thinking of Gregor Mendel, whose discovery of the process of genetics went unnoticed until the next century. John NcHugh is unveiling the process of the genetic inheritance of our religious stories from the stars.

[Jules Durand · Rating 2 out of 5]

McHugh claims that the Noah Flood story was originally depicted among the Sumerian constellation figures. This occurred before writing, using the stars as pictographic conveyance of these stories, and then handed down through the generations. The Genesis flood story was redacted at circa 600 BCE, from a compilation of various source texts with minor editing to create one coherent story. Computer software was used to simulate what the sky would have looked like to these ancient Sumerians circa 6,000 BCE. McHugh states, “It is my belief that the flood was merely one of these pictographic stories that confirmed a cosmological [?] event."

However interesting Hugh's hypothesis (I gave it two stars for that), he cannot support it with any factual evidence, and has used vast stretches of imagination to make associations with the ancient constellations. The first problem is the alleged computer software used to simulate the ancient Sumerian sky. Planetarium software is not reliable beyond circa 2,000 BCE.

Gary D. Thompson says it best in his thorough analysis of Hugh’s work, and he includes an abundance of citations. In his critique he states the following:

(1) There is no evidence that the Sumerians (or later Babylonians or Assyrians) depicted the stars that the ancient Greeks constellated as Argo, as a ship. The Greek constellation Argo is unknown in Mesopotamian tradition.


(2) There is no evidence that the Mesopotamian sky was widely constellated until the late 2nd millennium BCE (i.e., the Cassite Period) - when the omina series Enuma Anu Enlil was being completed circa 1,300 BCE.


(3) The iconography of cylinder seals is not a simple subject for interpretation. To argue a case on the basis of a sole cylinder seal is questionable to say the least. The appearance of "Aquarius", "Pisces", and "Capricornus" on Cylinder Seals of the Sumerian and Akkadian period (circa 3,200-2,000 BCE) does not equal the identification of these symbols as being necessarily astral in character and denoting constellations.


(4) There is no evidence that the Greek ship-constellation Argo was borrowed from Mesopotamia.

(5) The celestial boats in Mesopotamian mythology are not connected with a deluge legend. They serve the mundane purpose of providing a means of transportation for the gods/goddesses.

(6) The Mesopotamian texts preserve a number of different views of the Apsu. Usually it indicated the waters of the underworld beneath the earth that contained a freshwater ocean (the sweet water sea). According to Hamlet's Mill by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend (1969) the Babylonians named the Pisces-Canopus region of the sky "the sea".

(7) McHugh, however, has not proposed a new theory of Noah's flood. Some 100 years ago the identical ideas were vigorously promoted by both PanEgyptian and PanBabylonism enthusiasts (e.g., Gerald Massey and Heinrich Zimmern).

8) Ballard is an oceanographer, not an archaeologist or geologist. For a brief skeptical view of Ballard's archaeological evidence, by a professional archaeologist, see: http://www.skepticink.com/lateraltrut...

The test for McHugh's theory will be the use of rigorous evidence and the absence of excessive speculation. The problem with previous approaches - such as Panbabylonism - is that it had to argue that its tenets were implied in widely divergent material (as there were never any direct supporting statements contained in texts). The Noah's Ark in the stars idea may need baling out.

For a thorough coverage of the details of this critique, go here:

http://members.westnet.com.au/gary-da...