Mount Tabor
This is the "holy mountain," says Peter recalling the The Transfiguration of the Lord.[1] According to tradition, it is indeed on this steep-sided mountain that it took place. Later, it is also where the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to the 500 disciples occurred.[2]
It is a tall and beautiful isolated mountain rising above the Jezreel Plain at an altitude of 588 m. It is located less than ten kilometers east of Nazareth. From its summit, one can admire the panorama over the Jezreel Valley, the Jordan Valley, the mountains of Samaria and Mount Carmel, and even, on clear days, it is possible to glimpse the Mediterranean Sea. Mount Tabor is widely mentioned in biblical writings.[3] The Greeks built a citadel (Itabyrion) at the summit, which was later fortified by Flavius Josephus when he was governor of Galilee. Tabor is mentioned several times in the Bible.
Location
- הר תבור Har Tavor, Tabor, Thabor, Itabyrion, Itabyrium.
- 33° 41’ 00’’ N / 35° 23’ 30’’ E /
- +588m.
In the writings of Maria Valtorta
Description
Mount Tabor recalls to Maria Valtorta, at its summit, the headdress of carabinieri[4] seen in profile. She describes the panorama:Lorenzo Ferri drafted the sketch based on Maria Valtorta's indications."The mountain is not part of a range of mountains like the one in Judaea; it rises isolated, with the east in front, with respect to the place where we are, the north to the left, the south to the right, and at the rear to the west, the summit, which is about one hundred steps higher up. It is very high and the view extends over a very wide range.
The lake of Gennesaret looks like a strip of sky that has come down to be set in the green of the earth, an oval turquoise enclosed by emeralds of various shades, a mirror that trembles and ripples in a light breeze, and on which boats in full sail glide as nimbly as sea-gulls, lightly bent towards the blue water, exactly with the grace of the flight of a kingfisher skimming the water in search of prey. Then a vein flows out from the vast turquoise, it is pale blue where the river-bed is wider, and darker where the banks narrow and the water is deeper and in the shade of the trees that grow luxuriantly near the river, nourished by its water. The Jordan looks like an almost straight stroke of a brush in the greenery of the plain.
Some villages are scattered here and there on both sides of the river. Some are only a handful of houses, others are somewhat larger, with the appearance of little towns. The main roads are yellowish lines among the green. But here, on the side of the mountain, the plain is more cultivated and fertile and it is really beautiful. The various hues of the several growths are a most pleasant sight in the beautiful sunshine of a very clear day. [...]
Just near the mountain, on the low short hills at its foot, there are two little towns, one to the south and the other to the north. The very fertile plain extends particularly and more widely to the south."[5]
The holy mountain
During the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the appearance of Moses and Elijah signifies the link between this mountain and Horeb, the "mountain of God".[6] These two prophets are the only ones to have met God there. The first encountered Him in the burning bush,[7] the second "in the whisper of a gentle breeze".[8]
In the work of Maria Valtorta, it appears as the "holy mountain" mentioned by Peter on three main occasions, two of which are reported by the Gospels:
- Jesus takes his apostles there at the very beginning of his public life and comments on what John reports in the first verses of his prologue.
- The Transfiguration involving only three apostles as witnesses: Peter, James, and John, the sons of Zebedee.
- The appearance of the 500 disciples to the resurrected Jesus.
John's prologue
In the spring of the second year, Thursday, March 16, 28 (3 Nissan 3788), having started the Passover pilgrimage, Jesus announces:- "We will reach Tabor, we will coast part of it and will go to Nain via Endor; from there to the plain of Esdraelon."[9]John then exclaims enthusiastically:
- "Oh! It will be beautiful! They say that from the summit, from a certain spot, one can see the Great Sea, the Sea of Rome. I like it so much! Will You take us to see it?"Maria Valtorta does not have the vision of this ascent. She has only that of departure[11] and of the return in the following chapter.[12] This time the apostles go toward Endor, where the cave of the sorceress consulted by King Saul in distress, disobeying God's laws, is located.[13] This climb to Tabor, which is not seen, could be an unpublished episode of the Gospel, without importance, if it were not later learned that it was there that Jesus entrusted to his apostles the prologue that John reports in his Gospel:- "Why do you like to see it so much?" [...]
- "I do not know… Because it is huge and you cannot see its end… It makes me think of God…"[10]
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. In him was life, and that life was the light of men."[14]This discourse is repeated a little later by the same John.
"John, through his love for the infinite", said the Zealot, "obtained a great joy for us, because on the top of the mountain Jesus spoke of God so ecstatically that we had never heard the like before. And after receiving so much, we obtained a great conversion."[15]And John repeats Jesus' discourse, extensively explicating the content of these four verses.[16]
The Transfiguration
This episode is detailed elsewhere. Some details, however, help to support its authenticity. For example, Peter questions:"On the top there is only that old fortress. Do You want to go and preach there?"[17]It is undoubtedly the fortress once built by the Greeks and later restored by Flavius Josephus. A remark helps locate it. Jesus chose the eastern slope and replies:
"I would have gone up the other side. But you can see that I have turned My back to it. We are not going to the fortress, and those who are in it will not even see us."[17]Jesus goes almost to the summit, where there is a grassy plateau bordered by a semicircle of trees on the side of the ridge.
"You may rest, My friends. I am going over there to pray."[18] and he points with his hand to a huge rock, one that juts out from the mountain, consequently not toward the ridge but toward the interior, toward the summit.
Maria Valtorta, bedridden, had never been to the Holy Land and had no specialized documentation.
The meeting of the 500
The Gospels report that the angels of the Resurrection,[19] then Jesus Himself, invite all the disciples to meet Him in Galilee.[20] The eleven apostles go to "the mountain" indicated.[21] In rhe work of Maria Valtorta, this mountain has a name: Tabor, and she identifies it as the mountain where Jesus appeared to more than 500 brothers at once.[22]
Thus, exactly twenty-two days after the Passion, on Saturday, April 27, 30 (8 Iyar or Ziv 3790), and faithful to the Lord’s request, many disciples gathered on the slopes of Tabor. Maria Valtorta specifies:"They are not up towards the summit, where the Transfiguration took place, but half-way up the hill, where a wood of oak-trees seems to be wanting to veil the summit and support the sides of the mountain with its powerful roots."[23]There are the eleven apostles (Judas having committed suicide), the group of seventy-two disciples whose composition and number varied, and many disciples. But not all. Jesus summarizes for them the foundational teachings of the Church and gives prophetic advice about its future.
Jesus recommends that "they all have to be at Bethany twenty days before Pentecost, because later they would look for Me in vain."[24] This is to meet again for the additional Passover.[25] This celebration (Pessa'h sheni) was scheduled one month after Passover as compensation for the faithful who could not go to the Temple. This additional Passover takes on a new meaning here: that of the Passover with the Risen One and not with the Crucified. Everyone reunites in the garden of olives, and this might be the event Paul refers to while recalling Jesus’ appearance to the 500, because there were not 500 people on Tabor, which seems to be the case in the garden of olives.
Other events
At the very beginning of His public life, Jesus healed a deaf man in Capernaum. He was a blacksmith from Caesarea on the Sea. A red-hot iron projection made him thus. Jesus asks him:- "you came to Me? Who told you?" - "A leper who was cured by You at the foot of Mount Tabor, when You were coming back to the lake after that beautiful speech of Yours."[26]This is the first miracle recipient identified in Jesus’ work; he is anonymous, and nothing else is known about him, nor the circumstances of the leper's healing or the speech mentioned. After His forty days in the desert, Jesus had gone alone, during the month of February (Adar), into the region of Carmel and Tabor.
Points of debate
The location of the Transfiguration is not directly named in Scripture. Christian tradition has situated it on Tabor since the early centuries. There are records of two monasteries, and a Church of the Transfiguration was built by the Franciscans at the beginning of the 20th century.
According to Dom Calmet:“It has been believed for several centuries that it was on Tabor that Jesus Christ was transfigured[27] in the presence of Saint Peter, Saint James, and Saint John. Eusebius says so explicitly on the psalm,[28] and Saint Jerome, in the epitaph or historical praise of Saint Paula, and in his letter 17 to Marcella. Saint John Damascene also assures this, and for a very long time it has been regarded as almost indisputable.[29]”Even if the authenticity of the site has been debated, its location on Mount Tabor leaves no doubt for Maria Valtorta.
For further reading
- Jean-François Lavère - Geographical Dictionary of the Gospel according to Maria Valtorta: Places, monuments, peoples, EMV editions, 2017.
- Search in the Valtorta Index.
- Discuss on the Maria Valtorta Forum.
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Notes and references
- ↑ 2 Peter 1:18.
- ↑ 1 Corinthians 15:6.
- ↑ Jeremiah 46:18 | Ps 89:13 ; 1 Ch 6:7 ; Dt 33:19 ; Jg 4 ; Hos 5:1 ; Mt 17:1-9 ; Lk 9:27-28.
- ↑ Italian military police.
- ↑ GRM 349.4.
- ↑ 1 Kings 19:8.
- ↑ Exodus 3:1-6.
- ↑ 1 Kings 19:11-18.
- ↑ GRM 187.3.
- ↑ GRM 187.4.
- ↑ GRM 187.5.
- ↑ GRM 188.1.
- ↑ 1 Samuel 28:3-25 | 1 Chronicles 10:13-14 | Sirach 46:20.
- ↑ John 1:1-4.
- ↑ GRM 244.2.
- ↑ GRM 244.5-8.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 GRM 349.2.
- ↑ GRM 349.5.
- ↑ Matthew 28:7.
- ↑ Matthew 28:10.
- ↑ Matthew 28:16.
- ↑ 1 Corinthians 15:6.
- ↑ GRM 634.1.
- ↑ GRM 634.14.
- ↑ GRM 636.6.
- ↑ GRM 58.7.
- ↑ Matthew 18.1, Luke 9.27-28.
- ↑ Psalm 88.13.
- ↑ Dom Augustin Calmet, Historical, critical, chronological, geographical, and literal dictionary of the Bible, Thabor, 1722.