This is first monograph devoted to all three gospel versions of the story of Jesus walking on the sea. Its primary aim is a more precise determination of the literary genre which does justice to the text in the three gospels. It proposes a new explanation of the literary genre through a comparative analysis with Jewish inter-testamental, Qumranic and New Testament literature. The more precise designation of the literary genre as a sea-rescue epiphany forms the methodological basis for arriving at a more exact determination of the meaning of the story. This features a new, detailed investigation into the Old Testament background of the major motif of Jesus walking on the sea.The NT story of Jesus walking on the sea occurs in the gospels of Matthew (14:22-33), Mark (6:45-52) and John (6:15b-21).