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Elijah and Moses in Mark's account of the Transfiguration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Margaret E. Thrall
Affiliation:
Bangor, Caerns., Wales

Extract

The story of the Transfiguration has received some attention in the past few decades, and the significance of Elijah and Moses has not been neglected. But their prominence in the Marcan narrative has not always been sufficiently recognized, and where it has been recognized it does not seem to have been correctly evaluated.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

page 305 note 1 Boobyer, G. H., St Mark and the Transfiguration Story (Edinburgh, 1942).Google Scholar

page 305 note 2 Ibid. pp. 69–76.

page 306 note 1 See, e.g., Matt, , viii, 11Google Scholar; Mark, xii. 25–7.Google Scholar

page 306 note 2 Op. cit. pp. 2747, 65–9.Google Scholar

page 306 note 3 This is confirmed by the fact that in Mark's allusions to the Parousia there is no explicit reference to the presence among the elect of figures in Old Testament history. (Boobyer deduces the idea somewhat indirectly from Mark, xii. 25–7.Google Scholar) We could not, therefore, conversely conclude from the appearance of Elijah and Moses that the scene is a Parousia scene.

page 306 note 4 See Matt, . xxiv. 30; xxv. 41Google Scholar; II Thess. i. 7–8; ii. 8.

page 306 note 5 See Jeremias, J., ‘Ήλ(ε)ίας’, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, transl. and ed. Bromiley, G. W., 11 (Michigan, 1964), 939Google Scholar; also ‘Мωσñς’, Ibid. IV (1967), 856.

page 306 note 6 Leaney, A. R. C., The Christ of the Synoptic Gospels (Supplement to The New Zealand Theological Review: The Selwyn Lectures, 1966), pp. 22–5.Google Scholar

page 306 note 7 Mark, ix. 1113Google Scholar; Acts vii. 17–44; Heb, . xi. 23–9Google Scholar; Rev. xi. 3–10.

page 306 note 8 For Elijah see Jeremias, J., art. cit. p. 940.Google Scholar In the case of Moses, Leaney quotes R. Aqiba, who taught that before his appearance the Messiah would live in the hostile city of Rome, as Moses had done in the court of Pharaoh. See also Jeremias, , art. cit. p. 863.Google Scholar

page 307 note 1 Baltensweiler, Heinrich, Die Verklärung Jesu (Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments, no. 33) (Zürich, 1959), pp. 6982.Google Scholar

page 308 note 1 Nineham, D. E., The Gospel of St Mark (London, 1968), pp. 234–5.Google Scholar

page 308 note 2 Cf. Baltensweiler, , op. cit. p. 76.Google Scholar

page 309 note 1 Lightfoot, R. H., The Gospel Message of St Mark (Oxford, 1950), p. 43Google Scholar: ‘St peter in his halting, frightened utterances equates the three celestial figures, Moses, Elijah, and the Lord. “Let us make three tabernacles…, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah”’.

page 309 note 2 Harald, Riesenfeld, Jésus Transfiguré (Acta Seminarii Neotestamentica Upsaliensis, no. 16) (Copenhagen, 1947), p. 258.Google Scholar

page 309 note 3 It is not mistaken because he fails to recognize that they are experiencing only the foreshadowing of the eschaton and not the eschaton itself (see Nineham, , op. cit. p. 237Google Scholar). There is at least a hint that he does recognize this. Riesenfeld (op. cit. p. 258Google Scholar) points out that the booths are reserved for Jesus and the supernatural figures in the scene. If Peter supposed that he and his two companions were already experiencing the eschaton itself, he would surely be shown as suggesting that booths should be made for them all.

page 309 note 4 The eschatological motifs which Riesenfeld has shown to be present justify this assumption.

page 309 note 5 Op. cit. pp. 65–9.Google Scholar Boobyer claims that other details of the story can be fitted jnto a Parousia scene. The mountain is connected with eschatological teaching in Mark, xiii. 3Google Scholar (Ibid. pp. 64–5); the tabernacles suggest the eschaton (Ibid. pp. 76–9); also the cloud may be compared with the clouds which transport the Son of Man in Mark, xiii. 26Google Scholar and those which in I thess. iv. 17 envelop the elect and carry them to meet the Lord (Ibid. pp. 79–85).

page 309 note 6 Op. cit. p. 295.Google Scholar

page 310 note 1 See Pet, I. i. 11; i. 21Google Scholar; Heb, . ii. 9Google Scholar; Tim, I. iii. 16.Google Scholar

page 310 note 2 Op. cit. p. 298.Google Scholar Riesenfeld also criticizes other points made by Boobyer. The mountain is connected with the enthronement of the Messiah before the Parousia (Ibid. pp. 293, 295); in dealing with the clouds, Boobyer has confused two distinct motifs, the coming of the Messiah on the clouds, which belongs to the Parousia tradition, and the cloud which indicates the presence of God and covers the Messiah and the elect and which is associated with the enthronement motif, which is what we have here (Ibid. p. 296). We may add that the key term δόξαis not in fact employed in the Transfiguration narrative.

page 310 note 3 Op. cit. pp. 23–6.Google Scholar

page 310 note 4 Ibid. pp. 24–5; ‘Paul seems to have known nothing about appearances of Jesus in a human form. In Cor, I. xv. 3544Google Scholar he discusses the nature of the resurrection body in terms which suggest that he thinks of Christ's resurrection body and that of Christians as similar; and in, xv. 43 it is described as a body raised έν δόξŋ. Moreover, for Paul, apparently, Christ's resurrection was an ascent after death direct to heaven, in shining δόξα; that is, resurrection and ascension were two aspects of one occurrence; and the appearances of Christ after the resurrection were appearances from heaven in this body’. The accounts in Acts substantiate this. See also Carlston, C. E., ‘Transfiguration and Resurrection’, JBL, LXXX (1961), 233–40Google Scholar, who says: ‘The tradition that Jesus was seen as exalted Lord is ineradicably early’.

page 311 note 1 It was not until late on the previous day that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus (xv. 42 δη òψίας γενομένης, έπεί νπαρασκευή, έστıν τροσάββατον), and it was very early on the first day of the following week that the women came to the tomb and found it empty (xvi, 2 καί λίαν πρωί τŋ μı των σαββάτων). Consequently, it must have been on the Sabbath itself that the actual Resurrection occurred.

page 311 note 2 It is he who makes the comment about the booths in ix. 5, and he is specially mentioned in xvi. 7 as the recipient of the message given to the women by the angel.

page 311 note 3 See Lightfoot, R. H., Locality and Doctrine in the Gospels (London, 1938), pp. 111–25.Google Scholar On p. 122 he comments on the Transfiguration: ‘Not in the hallowed city of Jerusalem, but in the remote north of Galilee, in secrecy and mystery the Lord is made known for a moment to the three disciples as he truly is’.

page 312 note 1 Op. cit. p. 22.Google Scholar

page 312 note 2 Op. cit. p. 68.Google Scholar

page 312 note 3 Gerber, W., ‘Die Metamorphose Jesu, Mark ix, 2 f. par.’, Theologische Zeitschrift, XXIII (1967), 385–95.Google Scholar

page 312 note 4 There is one major objection to the understanding of the Transfiguration as a prefigurement of the Resurrection to which Professor Riesenfeld has called attention, and to which some answer is necessary. In the Marcan narrative as I have interpreted it, Peter appears only in a negative capacity as displaying and representing misunderstanding and unbelief. But it was to Peter that the risen Christ first revealed himself (Cor, I. xv. 5Google Scholar; cf. Luke, xxiv. 34Google Scholar). Presumably Peter was the first to believe in the Resurrection and to understand its significance. There is thus an incongruity between the Marcan Transfiguration narrative and the Resurrection traditions. There is a possible reply to this objection, however, There seems to have been a basic tradition to the effect that the appearance of the risen Jesus did not immediately and instantly produce belief, but that some further action was required in order to elucidate for the disciples the meaning of what they saw. See Matt, . xxviii. 16 ff.Google Scholar; Luke, xxiv. 13 ff.Google Scholar; xxiv. 36 ff.; John, xx. 11 ff.Google Scholar; cf. Acts ix. 3–5. Perhaps this held good for the appearance to Peter. If so, it may be reflected in the Transfiguration, narrative. The story in fact fits very well into the pattern of appearance, failure in comprehension, and further elucidation. Jesus is transfigured; Peter misunderstands the significance of this metamorphosis; the voice from the cloud, directed to Peter and his companions, corrects the misunderstanding.

page 313 note 1 The proclamation of Jesu's sonship at his baptism (Mark, i, 11Google Scholar) may also be relevant here, since it seems probable that for Mark this event was a foreshadowing of the Passion. In x. 38 he uses baptism as an image of Christ's coming suffering.

page 313 note 2 See Fuller, R. H., The Foundations of New Testament Christology (London, 1965), pp. 164, 187.Google Scholar

page 313 note 3 See Riesenfeld, , op. cit., passim.Google Scholar

page 314 note 1 Jeremias, J., ‘Мωσης’, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, IV, 854 ff.Google Scholar See Jos, , Ant. 4, 326.Google Scholar In Midr. ha-qadol on Deut. it is said: ‘Three went up alive into heaven: Enoch, Moses and Elijah’.

page 315 note 1 Op. cit. pp. 281–8.Google Scholar It is possible that for the evangelist it is these three particular disciples who symbolize unbelief and misunderstanding. Peter is guilty of this in viii. 32, when he rejects the idea of a suffering Son of Man, and so are James and John, in x. 3540Google Scholar, when they fail to realize that the glory of the Kingdom demands prior sacrifice.

page 315 note 2 Grässer, Erich, Das Problem der Parusieverzögerung in den synoptischen Evangelien und in der Apostelgeschichle (Berlin, 1960). See, for example, pp. 77–84Google Scholar (Mark, xiii. 32.Google Scholar stresses ignorance of the exact time of the end), pp. 141–9 (the parables of growth in their present form refer to the situation of the community and its self-understanding between the two advents, a perspective conditioned by the delay of the Parousia), pp. 151–70 (the kerygma has been expanded to include such apocalyptic material as the contents of Mark, xiii, and in xiii. 10Google Scholar a brake is put on the progress of events which shows that the delay corresponds with the divine necessity).

page 315 note 3 See Brandon, S. G. F., Jesus and the Zealots (Manchester, 1967), pp. 221–42Google Scholar; also Sherman Johnson, E., The Gospel According to St Mark (London, 1960), pp. 1920.Google Scholar

page 315 note 4 See Brandon, , op. cit. p. 241.Google Scholar

page 315 note 5 Conzelmann, H., ‘Geschichte und Eschaton nach Mc 13’, Z.N.T.W. L (1959), 210–21.Google Scholar