Jesus' transfiguration and the believers' transformation
Subtitle: a study of the transfiguration and its development in early Christian writings : a dissertation
By: presented by Simon Seung-hyun Lee
Published: 2008
Language: eng
Number of pages: 326
Subjects: Transfiguration; History of doctrines; Criticism, interpretation; Bible
Description: In my dissertation, I examine Jesus' Transfiguration story found in the narrative account of Mark, tracing the development of its multiple readings through the first two centuries of the Christian era. I pay special attention to texts where Peter is described as being the main witness to the event - Synoptic Gospels, 2 Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, and Acts of Peter. I also analyze 2 Corinthians 3, where Paul explains the transformation of the believers. In comparing Paul's account with that of Mark, I show that there are some common patterns or ideas behind their accounts and that both inherited certain views from early Christian traditions. In this dissertation, I contribute to the study of early Christianity by (1) helping bridge the gap between New Testament study and apocryphal study, (2) explaining how various Christian readers understood the Transfiguration story in ways that were particular to their own historical contexts, (3) fleshing out common ideas or patterns of thought as well as differences in various interpretations of the Transfiguration, and (4) locating the Transfiguration in the general phenomenon of metamorphosis with epiphany.

The Transfiguration, where Jesus appears in a glorious form with Elijah and Moses, is a fascinating and complicated story. Modern scholarship on this topic, however, seems to have focused exclusively on possible backgrounds or sources for the Transfiguration and on literary dependencies among various documents containing the story. I am more interested in considering these sources as parts of the dynamic process of the complicated development of the Transfiguration, and exploring the Transfiguration story's multifaceted development in various narrative accounts. In addition, I emphasize socio-historical aspects of the texts by showing how the development of the Transfiguration story reflects ancient readers' needs in their historical context. In this process, I believe that both specific historical events and multiple Jewish as well as Hellenistic ideas contributed to the various interpretations of the Transfiguration. In view of this, the textual instances of the Transfiguration may offer us some indirect information about the emergence of various Christian groups of people who came about in conjunction with the ideological trends of the times.
Notes: Contains abstract.

Th.D. Harvard University 2008

Includes bibliographical references.