Douglas Pratt

All great religions feature dramatic manifestations of divine presence, or affirmations of transcendent reality, in some way or another. Accounts of such extraordinary happenings—paranormal experiences of the divine—are ‘theophanies’, particular sorts of encounters with the reality and presence of deity. They are encounters with God. They often have stylised features. They are replete with patterns of symbolism. Meanings have to be carefully read.

So it is with the dramatic events involved in the narrative of the transfiguration of Jesus as found in Mark 9:2-9. Some kind of extraordinary spectacle is spoken of, but it has a deeper purpose and an underlying message. Is the account of transfiguration the record of a paranormal event of extra-ordinary phenomena? Or is it a narrative construct making an important theological point?

Either way some significant symbolism requires unpacking. Careful interpretation is called for. I want to suggest one which seems to me to be inherent in the transfiguration test as found in Mark’s gospel.

Transfiguration: An Inter-Faith Interpretation
In Mark’s account of the transfiguration we find a linking of Jesus with the Hebrew religious tradition. Phenomenologically, theophanies recorded in Hebrew scripture tend to feature a distinct cluster of elements. These include such things as mountain-top locale—most usually with the presence of cloud-cover; some form of divine radiance or luminosity; a voice from the heavens; and some kind of ascension to, or connection with, ‘the heavens’ (cf. Ex.18 & 19, for example). These motifs give the clue as to the spiritual significance of the narrated event.

Such motifs feature significantly in the Gospel account of the transfiguration of Jesus. The presence of God is mediated through revelation and interactive relationship. There is included here the apparition of Moses and Elijah—symbolising, respectively, the Torah and the Prophets. Indeed, in terms of the Jewish context, the presence of Elijah and Moses in the narrative serves to confirm the messianic role that was being laid upon Jesus. The divine voice—echoing the baptismal theophanic element (cf. Mt.3:13-17; Lk.3:21-22)—affirms the messianic role and the context of Jesus in respect of deity: Jesus is intimately related to God (so the language of ‘Son’) and has a kind of ambassadorial standing (hence: “listen to him”).

Thus we can say the transfiguration narrative provides an imprimatur, a validation, for the person and work of Jesus with respect to locating him within the grounding Judaic context. In the narrative, Peter responds with human reaction: he is terrified. This lends an air of verisimilitude. It makes the narrative seem more real. His suggestion of building shelters echoes a motif from the exodus wanderings—it links the present event with the context of earlier experiences in the Hebrew tradition and consciousness.

Furthermore, Peter implies equality between the figures, but this is apparently countered with the motif of the ‘uniqueness of Christ’. A dialectical tension is indicated; but it is no basis for a supercessionist conclusion. If in Jesus, named the ‘Christ’, Law and Prophets—the tradition of Hebrew religion—find a point of fulfilment, then that tradition is not thereby annulled by Jesus being ‘the Christ’, the anointed one of God. Rather the validity and veracity of the role of Jesus, while distinguishable from the Jewish heritage, is intimately bound up with that very heritage.

The linking is clear: Jesus is associated with the divine law and the prophetic tradition. Yet he is unique—something is being added; and the others are by no means discounted or dismissed thereby. The later Christian assumption of supercession in respect to Judaism finds no warrant here. What the Christ figure is about is indeed what the Hebrew tradition has been about. By implication, the tradition that derives from Jesus is, through him, linked to that prior and continuing tradition which granted context and authority in the first place. Who Jesus is, and the significance of his person and work, are, by the transfiguration account, set firmly in a Jewish context.

Applying the meaning of Transfiguration
As we know only too well, the socio-historical reality that emerged as a consequence of the mutual separation of early rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity has been the tragic phenomenon of antisemitism. For, although Jews certainly suffered persecutions before the rise of Christianity, it was the split between synagogue and Church in the first century of the Common Era that set in motion the particular Christian religio-cultural prejudice against Jews. Jewish and Christian mutual antipathy has run deep through the centuries. Christian antisemitism has ebbed and flowed through the ages, the nadir being, of course, the twentieth century’s European holocaust, the Shoah.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, as the awesome truth of the scale and extent of the holocaust became known, it seemed, perhaps, that Christianity might be coming to its senses in respect to relations with Jews. The fact of the Shoah—destruction—which is so profound in its impact on Jewish consciousness and identity, and so painfully and deeply moving in its remembrance, ought to be no less a solemn memorial, and a painful remembrance, for the Christian community. For the inescapable reality is that it was, indeed, the legacy of centuries of Christian bigotry, and the collusion, whether active or passive, of contemporaneous antisemitic prejudice on the part of many European Christians, and many of the Churches, that enabled the Holocaust to take place.

Certainly, in the last 50 years or so, significant advances have been made in terms of Jewish-Christian dialogue and relations. For example, it was as a result of the deep concern of Pope John XXIII for the Jews, and to address the profound questions which the holocaust raised for Europe and for Christianity, that led him to insist that the issue of Jewish-Christian relations be an agenda item for the epoch-making Vatican Council of the 1960s. As a result, the Catholic Church opened up new lines of communications with Judaism. This also spurned the great awakening of that Church to the other major religious traditions of the world.

At the same time, other Christian Churches, both independently and through the offices of the World Council of Churches, proceeded likewise to build bridges with Judaism. The impact of all this on Christian history and Christian self-understanding has been profound, and has yet to be fully realised. Most significantly however, the dogma that, for centuries, deemed the Jews, as a people, responsible for the death of Christ has since been finally rescinded by the Catholic Church. This false doctrine had long fuelled the deep-seated antisemitism that spawned the eventual horrors of the Holocaust.

In recent times Christian leaders and churches have endeavoured to repent of the tragic history of Christianity’s relation with Judaism. But the fact remains that most Christians are likely still to find it easier to ignore Jewish concerns and sensitivities, perhaps even suggesting that Jews should somehow forgive, even if not forget, the wrongs of the past. The protracted Israel-Palestine situation and seemingly intractable prejudicial positions in relation thereto can add fuel to this attitude. But such attitudes and expectations display a marked lack of a deep understanding of history and theology, and have the effect of promoting the continuation of the antisemitism that gave rise to the Shoah in the first place. The road to the recovery of a close symbiotic relationship of Judaism and Christianity, affirmed in the symbolism of the transfiguration, is a slow and painful one.

It is therefore no wonder that recent upsurges of antisemitism have been a cause of grave concern in Europe and around the world. In particular there is abroad today an insidious version of antisemitism: holocaust revisionism, the engagement in a discourse of denial and deprecation of the Shoah. It masquerades under the banner of free speech. It infiltrates the halls of academia under the guise of free enquiry. But free speech, free enquiry, is debased if it is not accompanied by the counterpoint of sound academic critique. We are none of us free to proclaim a lie as a fact; to proffer an inauthentic judgement as authentic; to argue the cause of evil as if it were a good; to draw a conclusion of supposed truth from a tissue of fabrication. Free speech is no absolute. There is a difference between giving voice to foolishness and ignorance, and the espousal of revisionist denial and lie. So long as the prejudicial discourse of antisemitism continues, in whatever form, the victims of the Shoah rest not in peace.

How is the Christian Church to respond to the promotion of the free speech ethic which then allows for a resurgence of anti-Jewish prejudice? How is the world to contend with such a resurgent antisemitism in the context of an almost global assertion of Western secular libertarian values and praxis?

A Critical issue: Passive antisemitism in Church and Society
In a libertarian age many in Church and Society would argue that they have nothing against Jews and Judaism per se—we are not ourselves antisemitic in any active sense, they say. At the same time, freedom of expression and association is of such a high value that aberrant and obnoxious social viewpoints and political platforms, though repugnant, may yet be deemed to have a right to exist. But what happens when such platforms gain political power and apparent social respectability? What are we to make of the rise of the phenomenon of holocaust denial? How are Christians to respond to those forces which seek to belittle, denigrate, and even repress the tradition of witness and faith from which Christ himself came and with which he is, in terms of the symbolism of the transfiguration, undeniably associated?

For Christians the contemporary critical issue is that of succumbing to what may be termed ‘passive’ antisemitism. Ignoring Jewish concerns; treating Jewish reactions as ‘over-sensitive’; assuming that, in reality, antisemitism is passé, an outmoded prejudice, itself superseded by a modern liberal outlook, are all variants of a passive form of antisemitism. It provides the context which allows for the rise of virulent and active antisemitism such as is found in the views of those who deny—that is, who challenge the reality, nature and extent of—the twentieth century’s holocaust.

This problematic attitude and activity has impacted on the world stage. It is a cause of grave concern, not simply at a social or even political level, but very much in terms of Christian theological understanding. By ignoring or down-playing active antisemitism we run the risk of falling into the trap of a passive antisemitism. But, of course, from a Jewish perspective the distinction between ‘passive’ and ‘active’ is academic: antisemitism is antisemitism. Either way, Jews and Judaism are denied. And, either way, the Jewish Jesus is likewise again denied.

St Paul, when addressing the Corinthians, spoke of a veiled gospel (2 Cor. 4:3-6). The good news of God is not always obvious. It is easy for a distracted world not to see. The Christian calling, however, is clear. We proclaim the Christ, the one who is, as Paul puts it, “the image of God”; an image which the transfiguration narrative denotes as being rooted in the Jewish tradition.

“Let light shine out of darkness” exhorts Paul. We may hope still that the radiance of faith might yet cast out any lingering shadow of anti-Jewish prejudicial tendency within the Church, itself formed in the image of the transfigured Jewish Christ. And so the Church, the community of Christ, may yet bear proper witness within and to the societies in which it is set, to combat resurgent antisemitism and its inherent denial of the Christ of Jewish-Christian solidarity.