The transfiguration of Jesus: narrative meaning and function of Mark 9:2-8, Matt. 17:1-8 and Luke 9:28-36

This is the first monograph devoted to ali three accounts of the transfiguration of Jesus from a narrative-critical, audience-oriented perspective. It proposes a new literary genere designation for all three versions, that of a "pivotal mandatory epiphany", based upon the precedents in Num 22:31-35, Josh 5:13-15, and 2 Macc 3:22-34. The background and meaning of each of the major motifs of the three accounts of the transfiguration is explained: Jesus is externaily and temporarily trasformed into a heavenly figure to antici­pate his future attainment of heavenly glory and to enable him to speak with the heavenly figures of Moses and Elijah. Rather than symbols of the Law and the Prophets, Moses and Elijah represent prophetic figures who, in contrast to Jesus, attained heavenly glory without being puf to death by their people. The three tents Peter wants to build have their background primarily in the Tent of Meeting as a piace of divine communication. The cloud overshad-ows oniy Moses and Elijah; it has both a vehicular function of implicitly transporting Moses and Elijah back to heaven and an oracular function of providing the divine mandate that serves as the climax of the mandatory epiphany. The climatic divine mandate to listen to Jesus as God's Son refers primarily to the various predictions of his suffering, death and resurrection throughout the narrative. The "pivotal" nature of this divine mandate is confimed by a demonstration of the narrative function of the transfiguration epiphany in relation to its preceding and succeding context in each Gospel