Solo

Gospel of Mark reports that some time after Caesarea Philippi, Jesus took Peter and the Zebedees on a high mountain and there he transfigured before them. In modern exegesis, rarely there has been more unanimous agreement on the origin of the story. After Bultmann, most NT scholars hold that the story is a theological manifest of a risen Lord, transported back into the earthly ministry to play a role in the unfolding of Mark’s Messianic Secret. Bultmann (History of the Synoptic Tradition (or via: amazon.co.uk), Oxford, 1972) himself believed the transfiguration originated in Peter’s personal epiphany after the crucifixion and the brothers were added later. He saw Mark’s purpose in creating this theophanic event as sort of a “heavenly ratification” of earlier Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah (260). After the influential Marburg theologian, the backdating of the event itself became something of an article of faith.

David Bruce Taylor is a case in point: This is the one occasion in the gospel where I feel it is quite pointless even to consider the question , “What originally happened ?” Plausible answers to such a question can be suggested (it is not certain that they ought to be, but undoubtedly they can be) for the two sea miracles and the two feeding miracles but the transfiguration story seems to have been solely created by the corporate imagination without reference to any idea of an original event. (Mark’s Gospel as Literature and History, 1992, p. 217). The confidence of scholars like D.B.Taylor in the event originating in later community seems to rest on the undoubtedly symbolic elements of the transfiguration, including the locale of an unnamed but “high” mountain (Mt Hermon or Mt Tabor have been the favourite guesses among the literalists). The Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter and Pistis Sophia present the transfiguration as a resurrection “event” following the death of Jesus. Further, the idea of Jesus as transfigured (μεταμορφωθη) is fairly rare in the NT texts and seems to fall in line with Pauline locutions. D.E. Nineham (Saint Mark (or via: amazon.co.uk), 1963) comments: Jesus temporarily exchanged the normal human form that he bore during his earthly life for that glorious form he was believed to possess after his exaltation to heaven, and which believers also hoped to be clothed with after his second coming Cf. carefully Phil 3:21, 1 Cor 15:43, 49, 51-53 and 2 Cor 3:18. The cognitive schemes of the first and last reference of Nineham, look very important, and relate to as I explained , to the disembodied “peak” experiences which in which overwhelming photism effects take place.

If the bulk of critical scholarship seems to favour the backdating of a visionary, (or symbolic), post-crucifixion tradition, the exclusionary view of D.B.Taylor cited above is not as universally shared. There are those who see the probability that the theological manifest was built in stages. Vincent Taylor (The Gospel According to St Mark (or via: amazon.co.uk), 1959) makes a tantalizing suggestion that the metamorphosis itself and the gathering of clouds, may have been later “imaginative” additions. Offering that it is impossible to say with certainty what happened on the mount (388) he then gives up analyzing the issues resulting from the cognitive separation of the story’s elements he had just made. Like V. Taylor, Nineham does not seem to believe either the story originated wholly in later religious imagination. He cautions that the possibility should not be ruled out that by the time the story reached the Evangelist, some of it was already obscure to him (op cit.253).
Naturally, V.Taylor is right in saying we cannot tell with certainty what happened on the mount. But if he is also right that the visionary experience of Jesus was later fashioned as projecting into his “exterior” with added special effects , we are left with a “probable” core of a story, in which Jesus, takes his trusted lieutenants to a mountain. Already quite excited, on reaching the destination he becomes, in their presence, engaged in a conversation with Elijah and Moses. During the proceedings, he possibly loses contact with his disciples altogether, suddenly stopping his glossolalic seance and passing into a cataleptic, or other seizure-like, state. Upon regaining his senses and speech, he attempts to explain the inner experience of the “resurrected Son of man” to his bewildered audience.

How can this be read from the text ?

While the motive of going up the mountain is unclear, Jesus’ decision to reveal “something” to his inner entourage, as apart from his larger discipleship, cannot be questioned too far – whether the narration is a mythical or real event. Arriving at the scene, he is said to transfigure, without any great overture. The historian now needs to determine, in whose head the magical happenings could be taking place. Is it the disciples ? The answer is, not likely that the three would have - serially and synchronously - any sort of visionary experience. On the other hand, if they had received some sort of report, on what goes on inside Jesus when he receives the Son of man coming on clouds, they would have formed some collective view of it, however unclear they were at the time about its ultimate meaning.

That Mark insists Elijah and Moses engaged Jesus, and not vice versa, has the makings of later protocol. It ought to be noted that the two are completely redundant in the theological revelation of Jesus as Messiah, as that disclosure comes directly from heaven, with special effects for emphasis. Mark’s disciples do not know what Elijah and Moses were talking to Jesus about (Luke does but that looks like gnostic mischief), so obviously there is the issue of what Jesus was experiencing during the proceedings. Was he talking gibberish through which only the names of Moses and Elijah were reaching the ears of his companions ? Or was he conversing with them perhaps in a way similar to that of William Blake engaging the prophet Isaiah when he became mystically “hot” ? Conversations with mythical dignitaries are in fact quite common in people who experience feverish exalted states. During the ascension of Mohammed (israh wal miraj), the prophet before being carried off on his buraq to Jerusalem, encountered Yahya (John the Baptist) and Isa (Jesus). If one wishes to look for an example in recent history, the founder of modern Poland, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski on occasions talked for hours privately with a female entity called “Poland”.

Next comes the issue of Peter’s offering to Jesus in 9:5. It has been noted by some scholars that he is interrupting Jesus’ conversation with the visitors. Given what is alleged to be transpiring, Peter’s address of Jesus as “rabbi” also seems strangely out of place. The comment about building tents for the dignitaries most interpret as complementing Mark’s view of Peter as foolish and interfering. But that Peter ‘answered’ (αποκριθεις) has raised many an exegetical brow. No question was asked of him in a transcript of Mark known to us.

The ensuing verse creates another little mystery. It is alleged that Peter did not know what to say and that it was due to a collective terror. But whether Peter’s response was inapropos or not, he did “answer” whatever the challenge was. Robert H. Gundry (Mark 1993) gets around this trap by arguing that Mark simply sees Peter as ‘nonplused’, and actually provides him with a good cover for his silliness - the terror he felt. But that theory has a slight problem: the real cause for the terror (God’s ‘presence’ through the Shekinah, or the gathering of clouds) comes into play only after the terror has been declared. The reality of the text is that Peter is interrupting a conversation between Jesus and his heavenly company, answering something he has not been asked, and his words are being ignored (discounted) by the very next verse. So all sorts of manipulation of the text seems to have taken place . The likeliest scenario for the fear of Peter and the Zebedees felt is that they asked Jesus something but he was unresponsive.

Mark (9:10) says that the disciples coming down the mountain questioned among themselves what the rising from the dead should mean. That is odd, isn’t it ? The three disciples are reported to have just seen the transfigured Jesus as deity. Jesus orchestrates for them the events of his ascension. He transfigures into a numinous entity; he de-materializes and then re-materializes. A huge voice addresses the disciples through rapidly assembled, menacing clouds, demanding that Jesus is the Son to whom they should listen. This setting, in which God’s will and power is demonstrated with such fortissimo, would not be one likely to stimulate the skeptical, reasoning circuitry in the brains of village folk. Mark 9:6 seen as Peter going dumb after making his offer, does not make sense in view of 9:10.

As M.D.Hooker ([amazon=1565630106]The Gospel According to Mark[amazon], 1991) observed, since the idea of resurrection was well known in the first century Judaism, the disciples bemusement at what the rising from the dead might mean presumably concerned the resurrection of the Son of man, not resurrection in general. That would work except the companions are said to have witnessed an assortment of miracles before the events on the mountain, among which they saw the Jairus daughter rise from the dead. (i.e. resurrection in particular) So what was there to question ? We are likely not reading of a real or a symbolic event but of a collision of cognitive elements, in which a theological manifest overwrote a differently narrated story. Because the remake is clumsy and intellectually naïve, the demonstrated supernatural power of Jesus is ineffectual even among his followers.

If my hunch is correct, the secrets imparted on the three would have played a crucial role later in the church. Having experienced Jesus excited exterior (the manifestations of the Spirit), and possessing his verbal descriptions of the inner states of “the son of man”, Peter, John and James would have most likely become the arbiters as to whose experience of “Jesus” in his post-mortem was genuine and whose was not. ( In Galatians 2, Paul goes to Jerusalem to get certified (2). He is referred to the three “pillars” (with the James’ situation being somewhat obscure, as the Acts’ chronology declares him dead at that point) and makes a deal of sorts with them, which restricts Paul to preaching among the Gentiles).

As I have already indicated, in my historical scenario the inner core of the Jesus discipleship later made contact with James the Just whose Nazorene church of ascetic saints operated independently and prior to Jesus ministry (I will run the model by the board at some future time). Coming into contact with an intellectual milieu familiar with the phenomena described by Jesus to his disciples, the Jesus cult quickly spread under James protection, owing to a baptism of “raising of the dead”, a ritual entombing that Jesus appears to have practiced, and Peter and John would have had some privileged access to and continued – likely on their own and with their Hellenic audiences.

In this intellectual milieu, the symbolic structures around the experience of the Spirit and their relation to the martyred prophet Jesus were built, among them the Transfiguration. The Danielic son of man that Jesus proclaimed, and believed entered into individuals as the sign of the coming age, became in short order the attribute of Jesus himself, returning as Spirit in wise individuals, and directing the community through the last days before Restoration.

Jiri Severa

JoeWallack

JW:
Jeff, I Am finished with Stephen I think. Not really a fair fight since I'm probably the second protes expert on the Birth Dating error after Richard Carrier (and now you know what he's written). Here though you claim to be the Expert ("Mark").

Mainstream Christian Bible scholarship, which you worship, sez that the Primary purpose of "Mark's" Transfiguration was to Credit "The Disciples" as Witnesses. I say it was the Opposite, to Discredit "The Disciples" as witnesses.

Let's Party.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Solo

Well, Joe, if the photic migraine and the talking clouds were procured for the text later, and plastered over the original embarrassment of Jesus talking to himself, then obviously the "canonical Mark" wanted to have the cake and eat it too.

Jiri

JoeWallack

JW:
Hi Jiri. Or maybe The Voice was merely an extremely young George Burns rehearsing for his upcoming role in Oh God, Part Jew!




Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page