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"Mount Tabor "
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Lower Galilee, Israel
Fifth Day of my Holy Land Trip, Mount Zion, Jerusalem
My Holy Land Trip
"Mount Tabor "
Lower Galilee, Israel
The name of Mount Tabor, Image, is rendered in the Septuagint as
Image, and in Jeremiahs and Osee as Image. It is under this last form
(Itabyrion or Atabyrion) that the mount figures in the historical works of the
ancients. The Arabs call it Jebel et Tur (mountain of mountains), a name which
they give likewise to Mounts Gerizim, Sinai, and Olivet. Mount Thabor is
distinguished among the mountains of Palestine for its picturesque site, its
graceful outline, the remarkable vegetation which covers its sides of
calcareous rock, and the splendor of the view from its summit. Nearly isolated
on all sides and almost hemispherical in shape it rises in a peak 1650 feet
above the Plain of Esdraelon, which it bounds on the north and east, about five
miles south-east of Nazareth.
Ruins of the Crusader and Byzantine churches are located in the north side, among the ancient walls is a display of ancient installations. Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
It attains a height of 1843 feet above the level of the Mediterranean
and of 2540 feet above that of the Lake of Tiberius. Josephus (Bell. Jud., IV,
i, 8) gives it a height of thirty stadia, or 18,201 feet, but he doubtless made
use of the figure Image (four stadia or 2427 feet), which the copyist must have
replaced by Image (thirty). The summit forms an oblong plateau about 3000 feet
long, from north-west to south-east, by 1000 wide.
Ruins of the Crusader and Byzantine churches are located in the north side, among the ancient walls is a display of ancient installations. Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
The
eye is immediately attracted to the north-east by the gigantic masses of Great
Hermon, then to the Valley of the Jordan, the Lake of Tiberius and the mountain
chains of Hauran, Basan, and Galaad. To the south are Naim and Endor at the
foot of Jebel Daby or Mount Moreh (Judges 7:1), wrongly identified by Eusebius
and St. Jerome with Little Hermon (Ps. xli, 7); somewhat farther off is seen
Mount Gelboe. Westward the rich plain of Esdrelon stretches as far as Mount
Carmel and innumerable Biblical and historical localities stir thoughts of the
past.
Mount Tabor is the object of poetical comparisons on the part of the
Psalmist (Psalm 88:13), the Prophet Jeremiah (46:18), and the Prophet Osee
(5:1). The beautiful mountain also played an important part in history. There
the Prophetess Deborah secretly assembled 10,000 Israelites under the command
of Barac, who subsequently swept down upon the army of Sisara and put it to
flight at the torrent of Cison (Judges 6:2-7:18-19).
Another ruins of the Crusader and Byzantine churches are located in the north side. Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
At the division of the Promised Land, Tabor formed the boundary
between Isachar and Zabulon (Joshua 19:22). Within the tribe of Zabulon, but
near Dabereth, a city of Isachar, the Book of Josue (19:12) mentions the city
of Coseleh tabor, in Hebrew Chisloth-Tabor, which means "slope or side of
Tabor". 1 Chronicles 6:77 also speaks of a city of Zabulon called simply Thabor
and assigned to the Levites descended from Merari. This is an abbreviated form
of the name of the same city, and is probably the same as that which as Dabour
figures among the Galilean cities conquered by Rameses II, according to the
"Papyrus Anastasii" (I, xxii, 2).
A statue of Pope John Paul left side of the Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
Polybius (Hist., V, lxx, 6) relates that in 218 B.C. Antiochus the
Great captured by stratagem the city of Atabyrion in Galilee. History makes no
further mention of this city, not even in connexion with the bloody battles
fought at the foot of Mount Tabor in 53 B.C. between Alexander, the son of
Aristobulus, and Gabinius, the lieutenant of Pompey ("Ant. Jud.",
XIV, vi, 3; "Bell. Jud.” I, viii, 7). Eusebius alone again refers to it in
the words "Dabira … a village of the Jews on Mount Tabor"
("Onom.", ed. Klostermann, 78). Dabereth (Joshua 19:12; 21:28) is
indisputably the modern village of Dabûriyéh, at the foot of Mount Tabor
towards the west.
The Valley of Armageddon as seen from the platform, left side of the Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
A ten minutes' ascent northward from Nazareth brings one to the ruins
of a Hebrew place called by the natives Khirbet Daboura (ruins of Daboura) and
also Abu Amoûd (father of columns). This is the site of the Biblical Ciseleth
Thabor, of the Daboura of the Egyptians, and the Atabyrion of the Greeks.
The Valley of Armageddon as seen from the platform, left side of the Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
It commanded the road of caravans and armies. During the revolt of the
Jews against the Romans, Josephus surrounded "the plateau of Tabor"
with a wall of circumvallation twenty-six stadia or about two miles in
circumference, which task was accomplished in forty days. This formed a kind of
entrenched camp where the rebels, pursued from all directions, sought refuge in
order to organize their last stand.
Vespasian's lieutenant, Placidus, marched against them with a force of
600 horsemen, enticed them into the plain by stratagem, and completely defeated
them ("Vita", 37; "Bell. Jud.", II, iv, xx, 6; i, 8). In
the fourth century of our era Mount Thabor, which was acknowledged as the scene
of Christ's Transfiguration, became a place of pilgrimage and was surmounted by
a basilica and several churches and chapels.
In 1101 the Benedictine monks rebuilt the sacred edifices and erected a fortified abbey, where they withstood several attacks by the Saracens, but after the battle of Hattin (1187) they had to abandon the mountain. Melek el Adel built there (1210-12) a large and solid fortress which the Crusaders attacked in vain in 1217; in the following year Melek el Adel caused it to be dismantled. The plateau of Mount Thabor is now occupied by Franciscans and Schismatic Greek monks.
Mount Tabor, rising dome-like from the Plain of Jezreel, is the
mountain where Christian tradition places the Transfiguration of Jesus.
Scholars disagree on whether Mount Tabor was the scene of that event
(described in Matthew 17:1-9; Mark 9: 2-8 and Luke 9:28-36). However, it has
throughout history been a place of mystique and atmosphere, where humanity has
sought contact with the divine.
