Mount Tabor Attractions Har Tavor

History

In the second millennium B.C. there was a Canaanite shrine, a "high place", on Mount Tabor, as there was on other hills like Mount Carmel and Mount Hermon. The god worshipped here was Baal, whose cult spread in the second millennium, as a result of trading links, to the island of Rhodes, where he was worshipped on Mount Atabyrion (1,215m/3,986ft) under the name of Zeus Atabyrios. (Atabyrion was also the Greek name for Mount Tabor).

In the time of the Judges (12th century B.C.) the prophetess Deborah and her general Barak mustered their forces on Mount Tabor before launching the victorious onslaught which annihilated Sisera, the king of Hazor's general, "and all his chariots and all his host" (Judges 4,12-16).

The significance of Mount Tabor in the history of Christianity began in the fourth century, when it became identified with the "high mountain apart" into which Christ went with his disciples Peter, James and John "and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him" (Matthew 17; Mark 9,2-13; Luke 9,28-36). Jesus thus appeared to the disciples in his divine form, as the Christ and God's "beloved son". Together with the Resurrection, the Transfiguration became one of the central themes of the theology and iconography of the Eastern church. The appearance of the transfigured Christ in a glory of light also had a decisive influence on the mystical thought of Eastern monasticism: a form of mystical practice, still found on the "holy mountain" of Athos, which seeks through ascetic exercises to be blessed with the "uncreated light" of Mount Tabor and thus to achieve a mystical union with God.

The first churches on Mount Tabor were built before 422, and in 553 it became the see of a bishop. From this period dates the large mosaic of the Transfiguration in St Catherine's Monastery on Sinai. There was further building on Mount Tabor, both as a place of pilgrimage and as a fortress, during the Crusader period. The fortress withstood an attack by Saladin in 1191 but was destroyed by Baibars in 1263. In 1631 the Druze emir Fakhr ed-Din granted the summit of the hill to the Franciscans, whose monastery still exists. In 1911 the Greek Orthodox, to whom the northern part of the summit plateau belonged, built a church dedicated to St Elias (Elijah). The large Franciscan church (designed by Antonio Barluzzi) was built in 1921-23.