Mount Tabor

Mount Tabor

This is the "holy mountain," says Peter recalling the The Transfiguration of the Lord (2 Peter 1:18). 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 (1 Corinthians 15:6).

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. 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.

Mount Tabor

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 strangely recalls to Maria Valtorta, at its summit, the headdress of our carabinieri seen in profile (see annotation bottom left in the drawing below). She describes the panorama:

"The mountain is not part of a mountain range like that of Judea; it rises alone and, from the place where we are, it faces east, with north on the left, south on the right, and behind, to the west, the peak that rises a few hundred paces higher.

It is very high, and the eye can discover a wide horizon. The Sea of Galilee seems a piece of heaven that has descended to frame itself in greenery, an oval turquoise embraced by emeralds of different shades, a mirror that trembles and wrinkles under a light wind and on which boats with stretched sails glide with the agility of seagulls, leaning slightly toward the azure water, truly with the grace of a kingfisher flying over the water searching for prey. Then, from the immense turquoise emerges a streak, paler blue where the shore is wider, and darker where the banks come closer and where the water is deeper and darker due to the shadow cast by vigorous trees growing near the river that feeds them with freshness. The Jordan looks like a nearly straight pinprick in the greenery of the plain.

Small villages are scattered across the plain on both sides of the river. Some are just a handful of houses, others larger, already showing the appearance of towns. The main roads are yellowish lines in the greenery. But here, on the mountain side, the plain is much better cultivated and more fertile, very beautiful. One sees various crops with their different colors laughing in the bright sunlight that descends from the serene sky.

[...] Right next to the mountain, on the hills that form its base, low and limited in extent, are two small towns, one to the south and the other to the north. The very fertile plain extends especially more expansively to the south (EMV 349.4)"

Lorenzo Ferri drafted the sketch based on Maria Valtorta's indications.

Location of Mount Tabor, drawing by Lorenzo Ferri based on Maria Valtorta's indications

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". These two prophets are the only ones to have met God there. The first encountered Him in the burning bush, the second "in the whisper of a gentle breeze".

In Maria Valtorta's work, it appears as the "holy mountain" mentioned by Peter on three main occasions, two of which are reported by the Gospels:

1. 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.
2. The Transfiguration involving only three Apostles as witnesses: Peter, James, and John, the sons of Zebedee.
3. 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 are going to Tabor, we partly skirt it and passing near En-Dor, we go to Nain. From there, into the Jezreel Plain." John then exclaims enthusiastically: "Oh! That will be beautiful! They say that from the summit, at a certain point, you can see the Great Sea, that of Rome. I like it so much! Will you take us to see it?" - "Why do you take so much pleasure in seeing it?" - "I don't know... because it's vast and you can't see the end... It makes me think of God... (EMV 187.4)."

Maria Valtorta does not have the vision of this ascent. She has only that of departure (EMV 187.5) and of the return in the following chapter (EMV 188.1). This time the Apostles go toward En-Dor, where the cave of the sorceress consulted by King Saul in distress, disobeying God's laws, is located.

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:

'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 (John 1:1-4).'

This discourse is repeated a little later by the same John. "John, with his love for infinity, said the Zealot, gave us (that day) great joy, for Jesus, up there, spoke of God in a rapture we had never witnessed. And then, after already having received so much, we experienced a great conversion." And John repeats Jesus' discourse, extensively explicating the content of these four verses (EMV 244.5-8).

The Transfiguration

This episode is detailed elsewhere. Some details, however, help to support its authenticity. For example, Peter questions: "At the summit, there is that old fortress. Do you want to go preach there?" 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 taken the other slope, but you see I am turning my back to it. We will not go to the fortress and those there won't even see us."

Jesus goes almost to the summit, where there is a grassy plateau bordered by a semicircle of trees on the side of the ridge. "Rest yourselves, friends; I am going there to pray," 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, then Jesus Himself, invite all the Disciples to meet Him in Galilee. The eleven Apostles go to "the mountain" indicated. In 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.

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 at the top, where the Transfiguration took place, but halfway up, where an oak wood seems to want to veil the summit and support the mountain's flanks with their strong roots (EMV 634.1)."

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 "everyone be at Bethany twenty days before Pentecost, because afterwards they would look for me in vain (EMV 634.14)." This is to meet again for the additional Passover (EMV 636.6). 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 find me. Who told you?" - "A leper whom you healed at the foot of Tabor, when you were returning to the lake (of Tiberias) after that very beautiful discourse." 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 (Matthew 18.1, Luke 9.27-28) in the presence of Saint Peter, Saint James, and Saint John. Eusebius says so explicitly on the psalm (Psalm 88.13), 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.”

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.

Explore

Loading...

The Gospel as it was revealed to me (Maria Valtorta).