Shiny Jesus: The Transfiguration

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan. And I'm Dan Beecher. And you are watching the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Things are going well. I'm, uh, I'm, I'm glowing. I'm positively glowing. Positively glowing, yes. Uh, because we're gonna be talking today about something that is, uh, theologically important and interesting, and that is we're doing What's That about the transfiguration. Yes. So, uh, so wi- without any further ado, let's get into it. Okay, so this week's What's That? As we said, it's transfiguration.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher It's, uh, it's, it's something ch- looking different than it did.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh, but in this case, uh, it's Jesus specifically.

Dan McClellan It's Jesus again.

Dan Beecher Oh, that guy.

Dan McClellan Yep.

Dan Beecher He's got-

Dan McClellan That's what everybody wants to hear come Christmas morning. "Oh, it's Jesus."

Dan Beecher He's got m-

Dan McClellan Um-

Dan Beecher He's got main character energy, and that's what- ... we're rocking with. Uh-

Dan McClellan Yes. And, uh, we've got three different accounts of the transfiguration. This is a synoptic tradition. This is absent from, uh, Mr. John.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, the Gospel of John. So, uh-

Dan Beecher John, John was out on his own, man. John was, uh- Yeah ... was doing his own thing. He was feeling, he was feeling, uh... s- I, I don't, I don't know. He was feeling himself. He was-

Dan McClellan He must've been, he must've been thinking about whoever it was that song was about. Um, but, uh, it was, we've got, uh, in Mark 9, in Matthew 17, and then in Luke 9, we've got the story of the transfiguration. And interestingly, and not insignificantly, uh, in all three of the gospels, this comes immediately after Jesus pulls everybody, well, his disciples aside and says, "Hey, just so you know, I'm gonna die."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "And then I'm gonna come back to life." Um, so, and-

Dan Beecher And he, he, yeah, it's, it's a very, it, it's, it's a little gruesome. It's a little- Yeah ... uh... And, and also interestingly, so Mark 9, Mark is r- r- correct me if I'm wrong, Mark, we think, is the earliest of the gospels.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So-

Dan McClellan That's pretty widely agreed.

Dan Beecher So that's what we're, where we should start, and when we're looking- Yes ... at this, right?

Dan McClellan Y- yes.

Dan Beecher Um-

Dan McClellan We should start at Mark.

Dan Beecher And Mark 9 really, again, uh, again, with the, uh... You know, when they, when the, whoever came up with the chapters and verses, whoever, the versification, why, why would you start Mark 9 with the last paragraph of the last thing? Like, Mark 8 ends with hi- with Jesus talking about how he's gonna die, and he's gonna be tortured, and all this stuff. And then Mark 9 starts with him saying, "And he said to them, 'Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come with power.'" Yes. Uh, and- And seen,

Dan McClellan except this is the first verse of chapter 9. Yeah. So-

Dan Beecher Which is so weird. Uh-

Dan McClellan So you can, you can blame that on, um... Who did the, the chapter divisions? I think it occurred with the, if it ev- if it occurred with the verse divisions. Well, the verse divisions would, um, would be relevant here. That was a dude named, uh, Robert Estienne, um, and I'm, I'm sure I'm butchering the, uh, pronunciation of that. Um, but, uh, Stephanus is the other name that he went by. Mm. Uh, that was 1551, I believe, the version of the Textus Receptus- Mm ... with versification for the first time ever. So, uh-

Dan Beecher I think he was sleepy when he worked on this one.

Dan McClellan He could've been, yeah. Uh, and yeah, we get verse two. You've got your pilcrow. Uh, you got your paragraph marker there in, in, uh, most modern Bibles. Starts off with, "Six days later," and interestingly, both Mark and Matthew point out that this happens six days after Jesus, uh, well, one says he's gonna die, but also predicts the Second Coming is going to happen before some of the people standing there passed away.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So basically said this, this is happening within this generation, which didn't turn out to be 100% true- ... um, or even 1% true. But, uh, in, in Luke, he changes it.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Says about eight days later. Yeah,

Dan Beecher he gets approximate about it.

Dan McClellan Yeah, he's just, he just, we're just gonna squint at this a little bit, and we're just gonna get a little, uh, a little ambiguous, just for literary effect. Uh, but, "Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them." And interestingly, if you look in the Greek, uh, the word for transfigured is basically the word, uh, metamorphosis.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay. Sure.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, um, we're getting a little Kafka-esque. Uh- Yeah,

Dan Beecher I was gonna say. With apologies to Franz Kafka, yeah. Yeah. And Jesus became a cockroach. Um,

Dan McClellan yeah. But, uh, he was transfigured before them. Uh, couple of things to point out here. Six days later, the, the, uh, the previous story is taking place at a place called Caesarea Philippi, which is, uh, right by a place that's now known as Banias. It's kind of a, a very small kind of resort-y retreat area, uh, in the very north of, uh, the modern state of Israel. In fact, when you're driving up there, one side of the road is a fence that's, that says, "Careful, landmines. Syria is- Oh ... on the other side of this fence."

Dan Beecher Oh, goodness.

Dan McClellan Um, yes. Okay. So, uh, you drive up there and, and Banias is there, and they've got Pan's Cave. There's a, um, there's a big cave. There used to be, uh, some temples and stuff up there. Very cool area.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But, uh, this is at the, the base of Mount Hermon, which the, the mountaintop is actually in Syria.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan But, uh, so there, there's an interesting thing going on here. Where did the transfiguration take place?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan That's a big question. And there-

Dan Beecher We know it's on a mountain.

Dan McClellan We know it's on a mountain, at least the, the text says so. If it actually happened, then it was only on one mountain. What mountain was that?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, around the 3rd century CE, there was a mountain called Mount Tabor-

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm

Dan McClellan ... or Tabor in, uh, in Hebrew, that is further south. In fact, it's right over the hill from Nazareth.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan If you're in Nazareth, Nazareth is kind of in a little bowl surrounded by mountains on all sides. Uh, and then there's a, there's a valley floor on the other side of, of, uh, the southern end of Nazareth. And then if you, if you head out of Nazareth to the south, and you get to the valley floor and you look to the left, there's just this little mountain just sticking out from the valley floor, and now that's Mount Tabor. 3rd century CE, that becomes the traditional site of the Mount of Tr- Transfiguration.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so there's a, there's a church that was built up there, Church of the Transfiguration. You can still go up there today. Um, significant because that's also where, uh, we have the song of Deborah from Judges 5 and the story of Deborah beating Sisera in battle-

Dan Beecher Mm

Dan McClellan ... from Judges 4. So it, it has some significance, but more recently people have said, "No, it's probably Mount Hermon because they were at Caesarea Philippi," which is right at the base of Mount Hermon. Um, and so they, they would've been right there. So maybe it's that mountain. Or maybe it's just a literary creation and it never happened. So-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... we don't know. It's somewhere in between that.

Dan Beecher All right.

Dan McClellan So-

Dan Beecher There's, uh... Anyway, they go up on a mountain is the main-

Dan McClellan They go

Dan Beecher up on a mountain ... is the main thing here. The, the-

Dan McClellan High on a mountaintop. Yes.

Dan Beecher Three, three dudes walk up a mountain.

Dan McClellan Uh-

Dan Beecher A rabbi, a, a, a fisherman, a rabbi, and a s- I don't know.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I

Dan Beecher don't remember what Peter, James, and John did for their...

Dan McClellan And, uh-

Dan Beecher So it's four dudes, technically.

Dan McClellan Yeah. He, uh, he was transfigured before them, verse 3, "And his clothes became dazzling bright, such as no one-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... on earth could brighten them." And, and this is, uh, the allusion here is to theophanies from the Hebrew Bible-

Dan Beecher Oh

Dan McClellan ... where you're seeing God, and God is so brilliant and shiny that it's like, you know, whiter than any fuller could, could get fabric. Uh, and it's shiny and bright and intimidatingly even deadly so. So th- this, this is a, this is divinization.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan This is showing that Jesus is divine. Jesus is, uh, like the Son of Man from Daniel 7. Jesus is like God from Ezekiel 1, just really shiny. You're gonna see a very similar thing happen in the Book of Revelation, the first chapter, when the person describes Jesus and his paps. Um, but, uh-

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan So, so Jesus is, is being divinized basically.

Dan Beecher Yeah. No mention of the paps here.

Dan McClellan No, no paps this time. Yeah.

Dan Beecher His, his paps presumably are, are enshri- are, are, are encased in the- ... the bright white clothing.

Dan McClellan Yes, yes. They're, they're in there somewhere. Um, "And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus." So now we got the two main forerunners of, uh, of the, the Christian gospel. Elijah, because Jesus is... You know, Elijah's supposed to return. Is Jesus Elijah? Is John the Baptist Elijah? John the Baptist had just been, uh, executed a couple chapters before in, in-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... most of these stories. Uh, so-

Dan Beecher I, yeah, I got really confused about the whole Elijah returning-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... thing. I, uh, like, there was all this stuff about, with, like, I, I looked at John the Baptist's death and, and there was this stuff about, uh, Jesus asking his disciples, "Who, who is the Messiah?" And they said-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... "Some say it's Elijah. Some say that it's Ba- John the Baptist."

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And anyway, it, like, it got a, it, it's a... So Elijah is the, is a figure that I don't unders- he's a figure that, that plays prominently in their minds.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And I don't understand what his position is for them.

Dan McClellan So, uh, Elijah is supposed to, uh, at the end of the Book of Malachi, uh, you have, uh, Elijah who's going to come before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. So you identify that as the eschaton-

Dan Beecher Right. I know y-

Dan McClellan ... the end times. And so there's an expectation-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... that develops in Greco-Roman period Judaism that when Elijah, Elijah will return to usher in the end times. And so some people suggest Elijah is a forerunner to the Messiah. Some people suggest Elijah is the Messiah. Um, so the messianic fervor of this time period sees Elijah as, as one of the main figures. Elijah is the, the canary in the coalmine of, uh, of apocalypticism, so.

Dan Beecher And I assume that this is also to do with, I know, I, I, I'm not very familiar with, uh, with modern Jewish tradition. But there is a Jewish tradition of, like, is it Elijah that, that's to come and visit on, uh, on Passover or something like that? I don't know.

Dan McClellan Uh, well, there's the, you leave the, uh, you leave the chair empty and the door open, um, for, uh-

Dan Beecher And, and that's for-

Dan McClellan Elijah.

Dan Beecher It-

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So. So

Dan Beecher I, yeah, I, this is all, this is all me just sort of piecing vague- ... fuzzy notions together in my-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah

Dan Beecher ... little brain.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And then-

Dan Beecher Um, okay. So-

Dan McClellan And then you have Moses-

Dan Beecher Elijah's there.

Dan McClellan Yep.

Dan Beecher Moses is there. Right.

Dan McClellan Moses is there, and Moses, obviously Jesus is the new Moses. Like Deuteronomy 18, "One like Moses," you know, a prophet like Moses. Oh, that's Jesus. What did Moses do? Went up a mountain, brought down the law.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan You also have Exodus 34. What happens when Moses comes down off the mountain? His face is show, so shiny. This is divine imagery. That, that's what's going on here. Moses has been divinized, and that's why he's gotta put the, the veil over his face because he's, he's giving off divine vibes and it's freaking the people out. So- So this is, this is taking a bunch of different traditions associated with divine mediation, with messianism, with, um, the mountain of God, with all of these things, and it's all shoving it together in this one event. So this is a, this is an, uh, a highly allusive, highly, um, kind of, uh, referentially rich, uh, event. And so you g- you can find all kinds of things to read into here.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, where a lot- with Elijah and Moses talking to Jesus. But, but part of the idea is, look, these two are signing off on Jesus, basically. That, that Jesus' identification with them, with their missions, the fulfillment of their missions, they're okay with it. They're, they're signing off. So it's, it's a way to endorse, authorize Jesus as the new Moses, as the new Elijah, all this kind of stuff.

Dan Beecher Okay. Uh-

Dan McClellan Then we get, then we get weird. Yeah.

Dan Beecher Well, I mean, what we get is these two, y- the three of them, Elijah, Moses, and Jesus are, are having a chat. They seem to be, they seem to be separate from, uh, from Peter, James, and John.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher We will get to, uh, James and John go- getting sleepy, but- ... they're not sleepy yet.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Not in this version.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Um, and Peter has a big idea, which is, "Hey, there's three dudes here up on a mountain." Uh, he says, "It's good. Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us set up three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Uh, "He did not know what to say, for they were terrified." I, okay. What, i- first of all, do we have a sense of... There are different versions of the, "He did not know what to say."

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher I think in Luke it's like, uh, it says something about 'cause he was dumb or something. Like, I, like, I'm not, I, I got confused about it.

Dan McClellan Classic Peter. Yeah. Well, it, the, the verse that says, "He did not know what to say, for they were terrified," is, is kind of writing off, it's presenting Peter's statement as misinformed, as inappropriate. Okay. So Peter, Peter is your impetuous kind of, uh, doofus in- ... the Gospel of, well, in, in all of the Gospels, where he's doing stuff, uh, that j- he gets chided for. And, uh- Okay ... and Jesus was a little rough on him, uh, in the previous, uh, chapter. But here is, the, just represent Peter saying something dumb. Now, now what is it that's dumb about this? Well, uh, depends on how you interpret what Peter means by this. The three tents, and the word in Greek is skene, which, uh, is tabernacle. Okay. It's a, it's a tent, it's a booth. It's, uh, all of these things. And, and this has a lot of, uh, referential quality to it because what did Moses build? A tabernacle. You have the Festival of the Booths- Right ... which involves creating a tabernacle. But one of w- I think what's mo- and, and there's even, there's even this idea that this has to do with kind of Greco-Roman ideas of, uh, metamorphosis, and Greco-Roman ideas of, um, epiphany. Because you, what do you do where gods appear? You build, uh, ritual sites. You build, um, cultic installations for them. So there's, there could be a degree to which that's going on in the background- Sure ... where Peter's like, "Let's, let's build a shrine." Um, and it could be going, "No, no, no, no, no, no, we don't do that." Uh, I think more likely the idea is, well, they need a place to dwell. Yeah. Let's get them a place to dwell. But the author of the story is going, "This is temporary."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because maybe Peter thinks this is the Second Coming. Maybe Peter thinks this is everybody coming back. This is the beginning of the, uh, of the end days, and Peter has to be corrected. No, no, this is just a brief drop-by visit. This is a, it's a drop-in.

Dan Beecher Yeah, the vi- the vibe that I got was that Peter was like, "Hey, we should turn this into Comic-Con." "We'll get each of you a booth. People can come up. They can talk to each one of you. They can get your signature, your autograph, and your, your headshot." And, uh-

Dan McClellan We're gonna do numbers today. Yeah. Um.

Dan Beecher Uh, but, uh, someone, uh, there is an objection, uh, to this plan, specifically from a cloud.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh, because a cloud-

Dan McClellan Got a lot of cloud stuff to do. Um, yeah.

Dan Beecher S- so a cloud comes in- Overshadows them ... and overshadows them.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh, and a voice-

Dan McClellan And this is also, this is als- also referential 'cause this happens on Mount Sinai.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Cloud of smoke on Mount Sinai. That's how, that's where Moses, uh, encounters God. But yeah, and, and the cloud represents God's presence because this voice is God's voice.

Dan Beecher Right. And so the voice comes and says, "This is my Son, the beloved. Listen to him." Uh, which is, which is, I guess, as sort of stands in, in, uh, counterpoise to the idea, "This is my Son in whom I am well pleased," or whatever. You know?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Now it's, now it's, it's saying, "Hey, pay attention."

Dan McClellan Yeah. So it's, it's kind of re-upping the, the same thing that happens at the baptism of Jesus- Right ... in, in Mark 1:11, where you hear the voice from heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Uh, and so, uh, according to the traditional rendering. So we've got God, once again, I think it is the only two times in the entire Gospel of Mark where you hear the Father's voice.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, and it's at the baptism and the transfiguration, which, which are probably also, um, prefiguring- Or foreshadowing the resurrection.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan When Jesus, again, is going to be divine, clouds of glory, um, cats and dogs, um

Dan Beecher Living, living together.

Dan McClellan Yes. Uh, total pandemonium. So, uh, you've got a lot of-

Dan Beecher Total pandemonium, really? Not mass hysteria? You're gonna go-

Dan McClellan Mass hysteria, that's what-

Dan Beecher God.

Dan McClellan Oh, you know, you know it's-

Dan Beecher You're the reference guy. I- I don't know. I

Dan McClellan am the re-

Dan Beecher Like, when I call you out, you know something's gone horribly wrong. You've had a, you've had a rough day, I know.

Dan McClellan Well, as, uh, as one great poet once said, "I have proximate knowledge of many things." Um, it may not be exact. Uh, but s- uh, yeah, you're, you're... we're looking backward, and we're also looking forward in this. But, but this is, uh, this is big time. But it is not quite the actual second coming. We're not quite ushering in, uh, what we're looking forward to. It, it's not what, uh, what Jesus promised.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan Uh, when, you know, he said, "There will be some still standing here today who ha- will not have tasted death before the Son of Man comes in the clouds, uh, of glory." And so this is not that.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, d- despite a lot of folks who say it is that, because they don't want it to be the second coming, 'cause that's me- that means it's wrong. Um, and we've already talked about that. It's just wrong. Let it be wrong. And, uh, and then you have verse 8, "Suddenly, when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus." And I, I would love to see, uh, like, a cinematic portrayal of this- ... where it's clouds, it's windy, you hear this voice, and all of a sudden, snap, and Jesus is like, "What's going on, guys? Let's go."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, and they're like, "Where, where, where'd Moses and Elijah go?" Yeah. And then they... a- what I think is funny is God says, "Listen to him," and then-

Dan Beecher He doesn't say anything

Dan McClellan ... he doesn't say anything. And then, uh, it goes on to say, "As they were coming down the mountain, uh, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead." Now, one of the things that's probably going on here, uh, we've already had Jesus say, "Oh, I'm gonna die and then come back to life."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And now we've got him saying, "Don't tell anybody about this until I have come back to life." There's no hint of this until, up until this point in the Gospel of Mark. And, and I and o- other scholars think that the historical Jesus had no idea he was going to die. Uh, and it wasn't until after he's dead, and, and then we start to get reports of him being alive again, that everybody goes sprinting back to the drawing board and goes to find ways to, to reinterpret the Messianic expectation to have a suffering, dying, resurrecting Messiah. And so this gets written into the narrative-

Dan Beecher Hmm

Dan McClellan ... of Jesus's life as if to say, "Oh, yeah, they knew it was gonna happen. Nobody said anything until after the resurrection because Jesus told them not to. So they were, they were in on it."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Now, like, you know, historically, we know that nobody seemed to have had a clue, but in reality, we know there was a secret. Jesus told them he was gonna die, and nobody talked about it until after his resurrection because Jesus ordered them not to, right after God said, "Listen to what he says."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So.

Dan Beecher Okay. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I mean, Mark, the first of these Gospels, was probably written, what, 20 years after Jesus's death-ish?

Dan McClellan Uh, no, probably 40.

Dan Beecher Oh, really?

Dan McClellan So it, it is... Yeah, I think most, most scholars would say this is either months before or months to a year or two after the destruction of the temple in summer of 70 CE.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So if, uh, because it, it basically predicts the destruction of the temple, uh, but is not yet so far away that it's not possible for someone to still be alive from Jesus's generation. And so most likely, that is somebody who can read the writing on the wall right before Rome is about to destroy the temple, or it's someone writing after Rome has destroyed the temple.

Dan Beecher Okay, fair enough. Now, there's one more thing I wanted to cover while we're in Mark-

Dan McClellan Okay

Dan Beecher ... before we, before we get to, uh, Matthew and Luke.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Uh, and that is just that, and 'cause this doesn't exist in either of those other, uh, Gospels. It, but it's the, it's what comes immediately after. As they're walking down the mountain, uh, the, the apostles, they say, the disciples, whatever, they say to, uh, Jesus, um, first of all, in verse 10 it says, "So they came to, so they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So that's interesting that that's how they've framed, you know, these two figures appearing, as rising from the dead. I guess that makes sense. They're dead. Uh, and then it says, uh, "Then they asked him, 'What, why do these scri- why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?' He then said to them, 'Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with, with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it was written about him.'" I, so who, wait. Elijah has come, or Elijah is coming? Like, I, like, it, it's very confusing to me. And also, did, when he says Elijah has come, is he referring to Elijah appearing to them on the mountain? Or what, what are we referring to?

Dan McClellan So I think the, uh, so Jesus is first talking about traditions, about the Son of Man and, and about Elijah, saying-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... "Well, this is what's expected." Um, a- but it's not really what's expected, because it says, uh, "How is it written about the Son of Man that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt?" That's not really anywhere about the Son of Man. So just like, uh, talked about how the expectation was not that the Messiah would suffer and die and then rise from the dead. That seems to be a, um, a revisionist take on-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... things. They're retconning-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... uh, the, the Son of Man. And so y- it seems like Mark's already doing that and having Jesus say, "Oh yeah, the Son of Man's gonna suffer." And you're like, "I don't remember that part of the- ... part of the tradition." But, um, and the same is, uh, about Elijah. Like, Elijah was, w- was certainly, um, persecuted in his life, but the reappearance of Elijah was not supposed to be associated with, uh, with, uh, suffering and stuff like that. I think w- we're probably kind of in a, in a n- not totally clear way identifying Elijah with John the Baptist, because John the Baptist is the-

Dan Beecher Oh

Dan McClellan ... the one who just suffered execution at the hands of, um, of-

Dan Beecher Herod

Dan McClellan ... Philip Herod, one of the Herods. Uh, well, no, it wasn't Philip. It was a, it was another Herod, but it was, uh, Philip, uh, Philip's wife, Salome, I think, was the one who said, "Bring me the head of John the Baptist-

Dan Beecher Right, right, right

Dan McClellan ... on a plate." Um, so I, I think it's kind of a furtive, uh, reference to, to John the Baptist. Uh, i- if we've got to identify Elijah with somebody, I think that's-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... the most likely candidate. But yeah, it is kind of a, uh, a veiled, kind of ambiguous, "Yeah, the tradition was like this, and, you know, it's been fulfilled." And it's like, I-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... the tradition is not like that. And how ... Like, but, but Jesus is just like, "Hey, God said to listen to me, so just shut up."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, so yeah, they did to him whatever they pleased as it is written about him. It's not really written about him, but they did do whatever they pleased to John the Baptist, and, um, he had a-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... he had a bad time. So I think that's probably what's going on there.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan I'm open to being corrected, though.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan If there are any other folks out there who know better than me who are listening, um, by all means-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... write in.

Dan Beecher Um, as, in terms of differences between the Gospels, it doesn't seem to me that there are many differences, uh, as I read through them all.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah.

Dan Beecher Other than, uh, Luke having, um, James and John being sleepy-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... uh, which was so weird to me. And-

Dan McClellan Which I think is probably prefiguring the Gethsemane, uh, event, where they are sleepy there- ... and they don't... And Jesus is like, "You couldn't even stay awake with me?" Um-

Dan Beecher So-

Dan McClellan "I'm gonna eat all the pizza. The movie's not even over yet. You couldn't stay awake?" Um, so-

Dan Beecher That sounds like a personal life, uh- ... a m- a thing that's happened in, f- to you many times.

Dan McClellan There, uh, there are a couple of differences. An interesting one in Matthew, uh, says Jesus's face shone like the sun.

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah. Not just his-

Dan McClellan So-

Dan Beecher ... clothes, but his face, yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah.

Dan Beecher That's true.

Dan McClellan And, and so that's more directly. Uh, I mentioned that Moses came down from the mountain and was all shiny. It was his face that was shining.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So Matthew is like, "Come on, Mark, let's get, let's get more specific. We're talking about this, right? So let's, let's get all Exodus 34 on, on this story."

Dan Beecher Well, and then John one u- or, or, sorry, Luke one-ups him and says, uh, "His face looked different and his clothes, uh, became as bright as a flash of lightning."

Dan McClellan Yes. Yeah.

Dan Beecher So.

Dan McClellan And then his, his breath was pleasing. Um, yeah, he, there, there are expansions that are going on, because all... It probably, Mark was first, Matthew was second, Luke was third. Everybody is making use of the, the Gospel that came before, but they're probably going, "Well, I gotta, I gotta one-up him. I, I can't be, um, you know, I, I can't, I gotta show up to this, uh, this discussion." So they're, they're expanding on things. And we've already-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... talked about how Luke is like, "Oh, it was, I don't know, like eight or something days later. It was in the rough vicinity."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Um, and but yeah, we're also looking forward to the, to Gethsemane, looking forward to the resurrection, looking forward to Jesus's glorification as a resurrected being, looking forward even to the second coming when Jesus will come as the Son of Man in the clouds of glory and all shiny and everything. So, so we're looking backwards. We're looking forward. It's a, it's a big literary pivot point in the Gospel story.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, I think that that r- about covers the transfiguration. Uh, somebody get Jesus some powder so he's not quite so shiny. Well, friends, if you would like to help make this show go by becoming one of our patrons, we encourage you to do that. Our patrons are the wind beneath our wings. They are the things that make this all possible.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And all you need to do is go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma. You choose however much you feel you can give. Uh, there you'll get access to early and ad-free versions of every episode, including, uh, also bonus content from us every week. Uh, so please do that if you'd like to. Thanks so much to Roger Goudy for editing the show, and we'll talk to you again next week.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.