Mark for was a good read, but I found it to be repetitive.
I was not surprised that the reading was this way because I knew that Matthew Mark,
and Luke were all similar books of the New Testament. This particular book told
the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. It was my favorite part of the book
because this story was not within Matthew at least not to my knowledge. I couldn’t
help but notice that the location of the mountain was never given. In any regular story there is always some sort
of setting in which the events occur in, but not in this fascinating story. I’m
guessing whomever might have written this book mistakenly left this part of the
story out, but as a reader it presents a problem. The problem that I and along
with others is that there is no true point of reference to connect to. So my
question that I would like to investigate is where is the setting of the transfiguration?
Like always I
find it difficult finding answers to some of these questions considering the
time span I am inquiring about. After some searches I did find two sources with
similar findings. According to https://bible.org/seriespage/transfiguration-matthew-171-13
the mountain that Jesus, Peter, and James climbed according to the Roman church
was Mount Tabor which is south of Galilee. I quickly learned that this website
had another location considering that his mountain would have been inhabited by
people. “The other view, and probably
more likely one, is that Mount Hermon is the site of the transfiguration.1 It is in the
far north, located north of where Caesarea Philippi is situated. It would make
sense for the transfiguration to take place in that region where Jesus had been
ministering and where Peter made his confession. Of course, there is a week’s
time for them to get almost anywhere. But the critical point is that they went
up to the place away from all the people. Mount Tabor is not a very large
mountain, and it was inhabited at the time”. So does this make the location
final? I believe so, but I think another source would not hurt either.
Mount tabor
Henry Alford
casted his doubt on the Mount Tabor based on the following: “ I first casted doubt on Tabor in modern times due to the
possible continuing Roman utilization of a fortress which Antiochus the Great
built on Tabor in 219 BC, and which Josephus records was in use by the Romans
in the Jewish War.” This would make
sense to me because Jesus was not a “fan” of the Roman empire so why would he
be on a mountain that they possibly control? The website http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/08/mount-tabor-as-location-of-christs.html
concludes its findings by stating the following: “The event was intentionally
private, and a setting on Mount Hermon or even in the mountains of Upper
Galilee would be more suitable than a location on Mount Tabor. The
international highway traveling through the Jezreel Valley passed next to the
Mount Tabor and would have made privacy unlikely.”
So with all this could Mount
Hermon be the place of this wonderful event? Or is it location that no one will
ever really have an exact point? I have to go with the facts presented in my
findings and say Mount Hermon was the location of this event because it was the
most secluded of the two mountains, and it was not in inhabited by people or
the Roman Empire. I will never know the real case, but I can say the setting of
the transfiguration of Jesus might have occurred on Mount Hermon due to the
facts about this location.
Mount Hermon
