A mountain bo situated, and bo beautiful, necessarily played an important part in the history of Israel. Its isolation, and the steepness of its slope.-i, marked it out, from time immemorial, as a fortress or rallying point ; and ilinktriictive beauty
led the Rabbis to maintain that it was the mountain on which the temple ought of right to have been built had it not been for the e.xpress revelation which ordered the sanctuary to be built on Mount Moriah (Schwarz, p. 71). Amongst tlie mountains of his native land, the P.salmist (Ps 89'-) could have selected no more fitting representatives than Tabor with its rounded features and scattered glades, and Hemion with its lofty peak and pure canojiy of snow. So, too, its natural strength and conspicuous po.sition led the prophet (Jer ■46"') to use it and Carmel as an image either of the power and pre-eminence of the king of Babylon, or of the certainty and distinctness of God's judgments. Some commentators suppose Tabor to be the mountain alluded to in Dt 83"''* (see discussion in Driver, ad loc.) ; and hence it has been conjectured that Tabor was an early sanctuary of the northern tribes, which afterwards became the scene of idolatrous rites (Hos 5').
Mount Tabor is mentioned by its full name only in Jg 46i*-i<, where it is stated to have been llie place at which Deborah and Barak assembled the warriors of Lsrael before the memorable victory over Sisera (Jos. Ant. v. v. 3).
The mount is probably (but see Dillm. ad loc.) intended in Jos 19-", where the boundary of Issachar is said to have reached to Tabor ; and this view was held by Josephus {Ant. v. i. 22) and Eusebius {Onum.). Whether the Tabor at which the brothers of Gideon were slain (Jg 8'") was the mount, is more doubtful (see preceding art., and Moore, fid loc). According to Josephus {Ant. vill. ii. 3), Mt. Tabor was in the district of Shaphat (Jehoshaphat in 1 K 4"), one of Solomon's comniis.sariat otticers. In the 3rd cent. B.C. there was an inhabited city, At- abi/rium, on Mt. Tabor, which Antiochus the Great took (D.C. 218) by stratagem and afterwards forti- fied (Polyb. V. Ixx. 6). In the time of Alexander Janna'us (B.C. 1U5-7S) Tabor was in the possession of the Jews {Ant. XIII. xv. 4). But the mount passed to the Romans when Pomjiey conquered Palestine, and, near it, Gabinius, the Roman pro- consul of Syria (c. B.C. 53), defeated Alexander, son of Aristobulus II., who had risen in revolt {Ant. XIV. vi. 3 ; />'./ I. viii. 7). At the commence- ment of the Jewish war Tabor was occupied by the Jews, and fortilied by Josephus, who surrounded the summit with a wall ( Vit. 37 ; BJ II. xx. 6, IV. i. 8). A little later, after Joseplms had been taken prisoner by the Romans at Jotajjata, a large number of Jews took refuge in the fortress. Placidus was sent again.st them witli a body of horse, and, having succeeded by a feint in drawing the lighting men into the plain, defeated tlieiii and cut oU' their retreat. Upon this, the inhabitants of the place, whose supply of water, derived from the rainfall, was failing, submitted {liJ iv. i. 8).
The later history of Tabor is connected with the belief that Christ was transfigured on the mount, and with the churches and momisLerics erected upon it in coiisequiMice of that belief. The narra- tive (Mt IC. 17, Mk 8. 9) seems to demand a site near Ca'sarca Philijipi ; but, apart from this, the existence of a forliliod town on the summit of Tabor before and after Christ, makes the selection of that mountiiin imiinjbahle. Eusebius, who states {Onimi.) that Tabor was situated in th(? plain of Galilee, and from 8 to 10 Koiiian miles E. of Dioca'sarea {Srfurieli), makes no allusion to the tradition ; whilst the Bordeaux Pilgrim (A.D. ^.V.V^) places the scene of the Transliguration on the Mount of Olives. The first notice of Tabor as the place of the Transliguration is a remark bv ( 'yri' of Jerusalem, c. A.I). 300 {Cat. xii. 16). Jerome, A.D. 3Sti, says that St. Paula 'climbed Mt. Tabor on which tiio Lord was transfigured' {Ep. J'aul. xvii. ; cf. £p. ad Mar. viii.), but does not mention
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TABOR, MOUNT
TACHES
a church. Antoninus Martyr, c. A.D. 570, saw (VI.) three churches 'at tlie place where St. I'eter said to Jesus : " Let us niaUc here three tal)er- iiacles." ' Arculf, c. A.D. 670, fount! (ii. 25) a hirge monastery with many cells, and three churches, enclosed by a stone wall. Willihald, A.D. 754, mentions (xiii.) a monastery and a church, 'dedi- cated to our Lord, and to Moses and Elias.' Sa-wulf, A.D. 1102, saw three monasteries, and adds that the one dedicated to Elias stood a little apart from the others. The Russian abbot, Daniel, A.D. 1106-1107, gives a full description of the mount, which he compares to a haycock, and of its holy places (Ixxx^n.-lxxxviii). Its slopes were covered with olive, iig, and carob trees ; and on the summit, at the S.E. end of the platform, a small rocky knoll was sho\vn as the place of the Transfiguration. Here there was a tine church, probably that built by Tancred, and near it, on the N. side, a second church dedicated to Moses and Elias. The churches and a Latin monastery were enclosed by solid stone walls with iron gates; and outside the walls were fields, vineyards, and fruit trees. A bowshot W. of the place of the Transfiguration was shown a rock-hewn cave in which Melchizedek was said to have dwelt and to have received Abraham when returning from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer (cf. Fetellus, A.D. 1130). Amongst the churches and monasteries noticed by Soewulf and Daniel must have been the church built by Tancred, to whom Galilee was granted as a fief; and the monastery founded by the Black Friars of the reformed order of Benedictines of Oluny, who in A.D. 1111 disputed the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Nazareth (Albert of Aix, vii. 16; W. of Tyre, ix. 13; de Vitry). In 1113 the monasteries were pillaged by Arabs from Damascus, and the monks massacred ; but they were soon re- occupied. Theoderich, in 1172, mentions a church and monks under an abbot (xlvi.) who, according to Ludolph von Suchem, ' used a leaden bulla, like the Pope ' ; and places the scene of the meeting between Melchizedek and Abraham at the foot of the mount. In 1183 the monks repulsed an attack by the troops of Saladin. Two years later, 1185, Phocas, a Greek monk, found a Latin monastery at the place of the Transfiguration, and to the north of it a Greek monastery. He also saw the grotto of Melchizedek, with cliambers above and under ground, and many cells for anchorites ; and close by, a church on the spot where Melchizedek met Abraham. In 1187 tne mountain was laid waste by Saladin; but in 1212 it was strongly fortified by his brother elMelek el-'Adel. The fortress was unsuccessfully attacked by ^the Cnisaders in 1217, and dismantled by el -'Adel in the following year. The monastery and church must have been spared, or little injured, for Ydkat, A.D. 1225, mentions it (ii. 675; cf. Mar. i. 434) as standing on the S. side of the mountain; and adds that there were many vineyards, from which the monks made >vine. This is confirmed i>y the tract ' C'itez de Jherusalem,' pt. ii., which notices ' a church of black Latin monks ' on Mt. Tabor. In 1263 the Church of the Transfi^ration was levelled with the ground by order of Sultan Bibars ; and later visitors found only 'hollow places and caves beneath the ruins of splendid iMiildiiigs, wherein lurk lions and other beasts.' Amidst these ruins, however, the Latin and Greek monks from Nazareth continued to hold an annual service in memory of the Transfiguration. The ruins on the summit are those of a fortress with square flanking towers, and, in places, a rock-hewn ditch. There are also many rock-hewn cisterns and a pool, and the remains of the churches and monasteries noticed above. Tlie ruins are Jewish, IJyzantine, Crusadini;, and Arab ; but, without