Mt Tabor is also known as Har Tavor, Itabyrium, Jebel et-Tur, Mount of Transfiguration.
PERSONAL NOTES:
We arrived to Mt Tabor in the afternoon on our bus, which started to climb uphill through residential areas. In these neighborhoods, the Palestinian houses are well built around here, with the finance from family members working from overseas as we were told. The bus stopped somewhere at the lower level of the mountain, we changed to smaller buses to go uphill due to safety, indeed the roads were zigzagging and winding in the midst of cloudy and balmy fog at the top.
As the bus stopped at the top, we got out in the midst of a foggy ambience. As I was catching with the group in the fog, they quickly disappeared ahead. The surroundings were shrouded in a mystique low dense fog and water vapors, it seemed like the divine clouds that surrounded the Apostles in the transfiguration phenonmenon greeting the modern-day pilgrims visiting the site today.
We spent less than an hour inside the Basilica, not much time left for quality time, and left quickly as we came in. Winter darkness and fog were settling outside the mountain top terrace. The rain followed us down the mountain as the sky was increasingly dark, as we returned to Nazareth, of 10 miles west of the mountain.
GEOGRAPHY:
From the west Mt. Tabor sits at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley, 11 miles (17 km) west of the Sea of Galilee. Its elevation at the summit is 1,843 feet (575 m) high. It is used in Scripture as a symbol of majesty. Jeremiah 46:18 (NASB) ‘As I live,’ declares the King Whose name is the Lord of hosts, ‘Surely one shall come who looms up like Tabor among the mountains, Or like Carmel by the sea’” (Ps 89:12).
OT HISTORY: Debrorah’s battle
The Israelite tribes gathered on Mount Tabor in the days of Deborah. The Canaanites were assembled at Harosheth Haggoyim (likely on the opposite side of the Jezreel Valley) and Barak led the Israelite charge of 10,000 men against Sisera's army. It seems that the Lord's intervention on behalf of the Israelites was in the form of a rainstorm, such that the Kishon River flooded and made chariot travel for the Canaanites impossible (Judges 4-5).
TRADITION
Early Church fathers believed that the Transfiguration took place on Mt. Tabor, including Cyril of Jerusalem (in 348), Epiphanius, and Jerome. Eusebius was uncertain if it took place on Mt. Tabor or on Mt. Hermon. One reason for this identification was a misunderstanding of Matthew 17:1. This verse was taken to mean that Jesus took the disciples up a mountain "by itself," rather than that he took the disciples up a mountain "by themselves."of Jerusalem (in 348), Epiphanius, and Jerome. Eusebius was uncertain if it took place on Mt. Tabor or on Mt. Hermon. One reason for this identification was a misunderstanding of Matthew 17:1. This verse was taken to mean that Jesus took the disciples up a mountain "by itself," rather than that he took the disciples up a mountain "by themselves."
BASILICA of the TRANSFIGURATION
The date of the earliest churches on Mt. Tabor is unknown. The Anonymous Pilgrim of Piacenza saw three basilicas in 570. Willibaldus, in 723, mentions only one church dedicated to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. There may have been three chapels joined together into one building, as in the present building. The current church was built in 1924 and belongs to the Franciscans.
The TRANSFIGURATION
Mt. Tabor is probably not the location for the Transfiguration: (1) Jesus and his disciples are in the region of Caesarea Philippi just prior to the Transfiguration. (2) The general location of the mountain is not isolated. Much traffic passed by through the Jezreel Valley below. (3) A military fort was located on top of the mountain and was cle
