Well, I don't think Peter ended up with a tabernacle either ... at least not an earthly one.
I presume the reader is meant to understand that both Moses and Elijah 'went back' to heaven from whence they came rather than simply dematerialising into air, into thin air to borrow a Bardic phrase.
They were talking to him about future events it would seem, the fulfilment of Christ's earthly ministry.
Whatever else that suggests it suggests to me that they were part of that, as members of the 'Great cloud of witnesses.'
But then, I'm Orthodox and that's how we see the Church Militant and Church Triumphant.
The 'Old Testament Saints' are part of that. We commemorated Elijah this last Sunday. Today we commemorate Ezekiel.
They're all part of it. As indeed we are by God's grace.
(I take the story of the transfiguration to be a metaphor to tell the Gospels' audiences that the words of Jesus take priority over the Torah and The Prophets.)
Which would mean that Matthew told his audience that story as a metaphor that directly contradicts what Matthew told his audience Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.
On the other hand, interpreting the presence of Moses and Elijah as confirmation that Jesus fulfills the Torah and the prophets, as @Gamma Gamaliel says, does not result in such an inconsistency or contradiction. To the contrary, it’s fully consistent with the approach of all of the Gospels.
Whether we take the story of the Transfiguration literally or figuratively, neither Moses nor Elijah are 'dismissed' as it were.
They do disappear without saying "Goodbye, Jesus and disciples. Don't bother with tabernacles for us."
But none of the Gospel writers report Jesus saying anything to them either, which I think would pretty much be required if they were “dismissed”; almost by definition, being “dismissed” requires some form of “you may go now.”
... (I take the story of the transfiguration to be a metaphor to tell the Gospels' audiences that the words of Jesus take priority over the Torah and The Prophets.)
I don't think it is just a metaphor. Nor do I think it is primarily about Moses and Elijah, significant though their role is there.
I think that it is describing something that actually happened. Jesus revealed something new about his nature to Peter, James and John. From where it comes in the narrative, I think it is both a confirmation to them of the truth of what Peter has just confessed, and a demonstration of Jesus's divine nature, that he did not want to reveal that to them before Peter had identified Jesus as the Messiah. I think Jesus did not want Peter to recognise him as Messiah just because he had seen Jesus manifested in that glory. Peter has first to recognise who Jesus is from what he said and did, and from spending time with him, his personality.
Normally, the disciples, like everybody else, encountered Jesus in his human nature, with that human nature on the outside, and with his divine nature hidden on the inside. On Tabor, I think Jesus reversed that so that Peter, James and John saw him with his divine nature on the outside and his human nature on the inside.
I think that is also part of why light is so important in the account, why his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became whiter than any fuller could whiten them..
... (I take the story of the transfiguration to be a metaphor to tell the Gospels' audiences that the words of Jesus take priority over the Torah and The Prophets.)
I don't think it is just a metaphor. Nor do I think it is primarily about Moses and Elijah, significant though their role is there.
I think that it is describing something that actually happened. Jesus revealed something new about his nature to Peter, James and John. From where it comes in the narrative, I think it is both a confirmation to them of the truth of what Peter has just confessed, and a demonstration of Jesus's divine nature, that he did not want to reveal that to them before Peter had identified Jesus as the Messiah. I think Jesus did not want Peter to recognise him as Messiah just because he had seen Jesus manifested in that glory. Peter has first to recognise who Jesus is from what he said and did, and from spending time with him, his personality.
Normally, the disciples, like everybody else, encountered Jesus in his human nature, with that human nature on the outside, and with his divine nature hidden on the inside. On Tabor, I think Jesus reversed that so that Peter, James and John saw him with his divine nature on the outside and his human nature on the inside.
I think that is also part of why light is so important in the account, why his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became whiter than any fuller could whiten them..
I'm certain that, if you hooked me up to a bunch of monitors just before one of the more unusual experiences I've had, you'd find a bunch of stuff going on in the brain--maybe even some prodromal stuff!--and it doesn't disturb me. I mean, why not? If God intends to communicate with a human being, he isn't going to lose his God license because he chooses to do it in a way that leaves tracks behind. In fact, I'd expect him to leave tracks behind any time he messes with nature, just like everybody else.
I'm not really sure where this idea came from, that to be really truly a God thing, it has to leave no physical traces behind. To me, the question isn't "Is this a God thing, or is it physical"? Rather the question is, "Is this a God thing, or is MERELY physical"--something that has no correspondence to reality on any level.
Increasingly, the phenomenon of increased brain wave activity at death is thought to be more common, not just among humans, but among other mammals as well. Needs oodles more study and data, though. Link.
... (I take the story of the transfiguration to be a metaphor to tell the Gospels' audiences that the words of Jesus take priority over the Torah and The Prophets.)
I don't think it is just a metaphor. Nor do I think it is primarily about Moses and Elijah, significant though their role is there.
I think that it is describing something that actually happened. Jesus revealed something new about his nature to Peter, James and John. From where it comes in the narrative, I think it is both a confirmation to them of the truth of what Peter has just confessed, and a demonstration of Jesus's divine nature, that he did not want to reveal that to them before Peter had identified Jesus as the Messiah. I think Jesus did not want Peter to recognise him as Messiah just because he had seen Jesus manifested in that glory. Peter has first to recognise who Jesus is from what he said and did, and from spending time with him, his personality.
Normally, the disciples, like everybody else, encountered Jesus in his human nature, with that human nature on the outside, and with his divine nature hidden on the inside. On Tabor, I think Jesus reversed that so that Peter, James and John saw him with his divine nature on the outside and his human nature on the inside.
I think that is also part of why light is so important in the account, why his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became whiter than any fuller could whiten them..
The transfiguration story in Mark fits well with the Markan theme of the disciples' lack of understanding and their slowness to learn. (And for Mark I take to indicate that presents what being a disciple is like, and not something peculiar to the first (three) disciples).
Mark includes the contemporary expectation that Elijah is to come first, before The Anointed One, and has Jesus alluding to John The Baptiser metaphorically as Elijah.
Matthew portrays Jesus as being the expected prophet like, or rather greater than, Moses by the way Matthew structures his material. The transfiguration story is easily repurposed for to suit this for his Jewish Christian audience. Jesus' face shines, reminiscent of Moses' face shining.
Matthew states clearly that John The Baptiser is to be understood as Elijah.
Luke has a theme of continuing to pray and not giving up (unlike Matthew who warns about praying too much, and in public, and as gentiles pray). So Luke's transfiguration has Jesus going up the mountain to pray. In this version, both Jesus' face and his clothing shine.
In all three versions, Peter suggests that he or the three build tabernacles, only to be told by God that Jesus is His Beloved (Chosen in Luke) Son and that they should listen to him. This is the pre-eminence of Jesus' teaching over Torah and The Prophets. (And later in Matthew we are told that all the Law and the Prophets hang on the commandment to love God and your neighbour as yourself - viz Rabbi Hillel).
All three accounts are purposed to suit themes of their Gospels.
Some may like to repurpose them again to support that there is life after death by taking the appearances of Elijah and Moses literally as e.g. reappearances from heaven, but that's not how the gospel writers used them. I think that requires taking symbolic stories literally, and not in the genres/literary styles that they were originally written in and how the intended audiences would have understood them.
This is the pre-eminence of Jesus' teaching over Torah and The Prophets.
Again, this interpretation seems to me to require that Matthew in describing the Transfiguration contradicts what he records Jesus as saying in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, I think, is very clearly trying to convey the idea that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Torah and the Prophets. It’s not that he’s “pre-eminent over” them; rather, it’s that he is what they were pointing to.
Some may like to repurpose them again to support that there is life after death by taking the appearances of Elijah and Moses literally as e.g. reappearances from heaven, but that's not how the gospel writers used them. I think that requires taking symbolic stories literally, and not in the genres/literary styles that they were originally written in and how the intended audiences would have understood them.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the stories are meant to be taken symbolically—which frankly I think is a harder argument to support than arguing they are meant to be understood as something that actually happened, or that the disciples experienced—saying they’re “repurposed” to show there’s life after death seems odd.
I wouldn’t point to them for that purpose. (Is anybody doing that, or is that something of a straw man?)
But I also think that’s sort of beside the point, as I think we can take it as given that the evangelists believed in and assumed the reality of life after death.
Telling a story in different ways to bring out different aspects to make a point doesn’t mean the event at the heart of it didn’t happen. This story from 2020 comes to mind.
This is the pre-eminence of Jesus' teaching over Torah and The Prophets.
Again, this interpretation seems to me to require that Matthew in describing the Transfiguration contradicts what he records Jesus as saying in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, I think, is very clearly trying to convey the idea that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Torah and the Prophets. It’s not that he’s “pre-eminent over” them; rather, it’s that he is what they were pointing to.
Some may like to repurpose them again to support that there is life after death by taking the appearances of Elijah and Moses literally as e.g. reappearances from heaven, but that's not how the gospel writers used them. I think that requires taking symbolic stories literally, and not in the genres/literary styles that they were originally written in and how the intended audiences would have understood them.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the stories are meant to be taken symbolically—which frankly I think is a harder argument to support than arguing they are meant to be understood as something that actually happened, or that the disciples experienced—saying they’re “repurposed” to show there’s life after death seems odd.
I wouldn’t point to them for that purpose. (Is anybody doing that, or is that something of a straw man?)
But I also think that’s sort of beside the point, as I think we can take it as given that the evangelists believed in and assumed the reality of life after death.
This is the pre-eminence of Jesus' teaching over Torah and The Prophets.
Again, this interpretation seems to me to require that Matthew in describing the Transfiguration contradicts what he records Jesus as saying in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, I think, is very clearly trying to convey the idea that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Torah and the Prophets. It’s not that he’s “pre-eminent over” them; rather, it’s that he is what they were pointing to.
Some may like to repurpose them again to support that there is life after death by taking the appearances of Elijah and Moses literally as e.g. reappearances from heaven, but that's not how the gospel writers used them. I think that requires taking symbolic stories literally, and not in the genres/literary styles that they were originally written in and how the intended audiences would have understood them.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the stories are meant to be taken symbolically—which frankly I think is a harder argument to support than arguing they are meant to be understood as something that actually happened, or that the disciples experienced—saying they’re “repurposed” to show there’s life after death seems odd.
I wouldn’t point to them for that purpose. (Is anybody doing that, or is that something of a straw man?)
But I also think that’s sort of beside the point, as I think we can take it as given that the evangelists believed in and assumed the reality of life after death.
But I also think that’s sort of beside the point, as I think we can take it as given that the evangelists believed in and assumed the reality of life after death.
I'm reminded that Elijah didn't die.
I think I'd subscribe to the idea that what the evangelists believed about the reality of life after death bears an incomplete resemblance to what we believe when we talk about the reality of life after death. We might be using the same words, but there's an intervening 2000 years of development of thought and understanding about what they mean.
Maybe what they believed might be described today as the reality of life *instead* of death, or something else that we would struggle to articulate.
I treasure the experience, or whatever it was, that I had all those years ago. As much as I am glad to have my life here, I have a strong hope that there is something infinitely better ahead! My mind's eye can't picture the colors or the gorgeous light, but there is still the echo of the great love I felt.
Comments
Whether we take the story of the Transfiguration literally or figuratively, neither Moses nor Elijah are 'dismissed' as it were.
They do disappear without saying "Goodbye, Jesus and disciples. Don't bother with tabernacles for us."
I presume the reader is meant to understand that both Moses and Elijah 'went back' to heaven from whence they came rather than simply dematerialising into air, into thin air to borrow a Bardic phrase.
They were talking to him about future events it would seem, the fulfilment of Christ's earthly ministry.
Whatever else that suggests it suggests to me that they were part of that, as members of the 'Great cloud of witnesses.'
But then, I'm Orthodox and that's how we see the Church Militant and Church Triumphant.
The 'Old Testament Saints' are part of that. We commemorated Elijah this last Sunday. Today we commemorate Ezekiel.
They're all part of it. As indeed we are by God's grace.
On the other hand, interpreting the presence of Moses and Elijah as confirmation that Jesus fulfills the Torah and the prophets, as @Gamma Gamaliel says, does not result in such an inconsistency or contradiction. To the contrary, it’s fully consistent with the approach of all of the Gospels.
But none of the Gospel writers report Jesus saying anything to them either, which I think would pretty much be required if they were “dismissed”; almost by definition, being “dismissed” requires some form of “you may go now.”
I think that it is describing something that actually happened. Jesus revealed something new about his nature to Peter, James and John. From where it comes in the narrative, I think it is both a confirmation to them of the truth of what Peter has just confessed, and a demonstration of Jesus's divine nature, that he did not want to reveal that to them before Peter had identified Jesus as the Messiah. I think Jesus did not want Peter to recognise him as Messiah just because he had seen Jesus manifested in that glory. Peter has first to recognise who Jesus is from what he said and did, and from spending time with him, his personality.
Normally, the disciples, like everybody else, encountered Jesus in his human nature, with that human nature on the outside, and with his divine nature hidden on the inside. On Tabor, I think Jesus reversed that so that Peter, James and John saw him with his divine nature on the outside and his human nature on the inside.
I think that is also part of why light is so important in the account, why his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became whiter than any fuller could whiten them..
There's a lot that can be said about the Transfiguration. We'll be celebrating it in our calendar shortly.
But like @Lamb Chopped I tend to think a kind of awed silence is the appropriate response.
It's hardly surprising Peter got a bit gabbly and incoherent.
On the light thing ... yes, The Uncreated Light of Mount Tabor.
We make a big thing of that of course. The Byzantine hesychasts claimed to have seen it at times.
Spot on!
Increasingly, the phenomenon of increased brain wave activity at death is thought to be more common, not just among humans, but among other mammals as well. Needs oodles more study and data, though. Link.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the Transfiguration stories
The transfiguration story in Mark fits well with the Markan theme of the disciples' lack of understanding and their slowness to learn. (And for Mark I take to indicate that presents what being a disciple is like, and not something peculiar to the first (three) disciples).
Mark includes the contemporary expectation that Elijah is to come first, before The Anointed One, and has Jesus alluding to John The Baptiser metaphorically as Elijah.
Matthew portrays Jesus as being the expected prophet like, or rather greater than, Moses by the way Matthew structures his material. The transfiguration story is easily repurposed for to suit this for his Jewish Christian audience. Jesus' face shines, reminiscent of Moses' face shining.
Matthew states clearly that John The Baptiser is to be understood as Elijah.
Luke has a theme of continuing to pray and not giving up (unlike Matthew who warns about praying too much, and in public, and as gentiles pray). So Luke's transfiguration has Jesus going up the mountain to pray. In this version, both Jesus' face and his clothing shine.
In all three versions, Peter suggests that he or the three build tabernacles, only to be told by God that Jesus is His Beloved (Chosen in Luke) Son and that they should listen to him. This is the pre-eminence of Jesus' teaching over Torah and The Prophets. (And later in Matthew we are told that all the Law and the Prophets hang on the commandment to love God and your neighbour as yourself - viz Rabbi Hillel).
All three accounts are purposed to suit themes of their Gospels.
Some may like to repurpose them again to support that there is life after death by taking the appearances of Elijah and Moses literally as e.g. reappearances from heaven, but that's not how the gospel writers used them. I think that requires taking symbolic stories literally, and not in the genres/literary styles that they were originally written in and how the intended audiences would have understood them.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the stories are meant to be taken symbolically—which frankly I think is a harder argument to support than arguing they are meant to be understood as something that actually happened, or that the disciples experienced—saying they’re “repurposed” to show there’s life after death seems odd.
I wouldn’t point to them for that purpose. (Is anybody doing that, or is that something of a straw man?)
But I also think that’s sort of beside the point, as I think we can take it as given that the evangelists believed in and assumed the reality of life after death.
Yes 🙏
And, at least some of us believe, still do.
Our Lord did. That's good enough for me!
I think I'd subscribe to the idea that what the evangelists believed about the reality of life after death bears an incomplete resemblance to what we believe when we talk about the reality of life after death. We might be using the same words, but there's an intervening 2000 years of development of thought and understanding about what they mean.
Maybe what they believed might be described today as the reality of life *instead* of death, or something else that we would struggle to articulate.
Enoch was also taken by God, IIRC.
I treasure the experience, or whatever it was, that I had all those years ago. As much as I am glad to have my life here, I have a strong hope that there is something infinitely better ahead! My mind's eye can't picture the colors or the gorgeous light, but there is still the echo of the great love I felt.