Friday, April 18, 2014

Page - 40
(D)


"Mount Tabor "
Lower Galilee, Israel


Wednesday, ‎December ‎25, ‎2013

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.

Benedictine Chapel, left side of the Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
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.

The Valley of Armageddon as seen from the platform, left side of the Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
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.

The Valley of Armageddon as seen from the platform, left side of the Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
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.

Road from the Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:
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.

Road from the Church of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor:

No comments:

Post a Comment