Five Reasons Why the Transfiguration Really Happened

Mark is writing to a Gentile audience, and like us, they wouldn’t know what on earth the line about the tents is about. In fact Peter was suggesting that he build three little tabernacles for Jesus, Elijah and Moses. This was like the Tent of Meeting that Moses built when the glory of God came down. This connects with the Jewish feast of Tabernacles when they all built little tents to serve as holy places–like the Tent of Meeting. The fact that this detail was kept in rather than excised for the Gentile audience attests to the story’s authenticity.

Thirdly, Matthew places this story directly after Jesus’ conversation with Peter in which Peter acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah and Jesus says, “You are Peter and on this Rock I will build my church.” That Peter not having a clue what was going on is placed directly after the bold claim for Peter in the chapter before indicates that this detail of the story is a direct memory of an eyewitness account–otherwise Matthew (out of respect for Peter) would have airbrushed that embarrassing detail out of the story.

Fourth: the criterion of impossibility comes into play. Basically, the more supernatural a story is, the less it was likely to have been made up. If someone reports to you that they saw a ghost you tend to believe that they really saw something and had some sort of weird experience because to tell people that you’ve seen a ghost or a Jewish rabbi all radiant like a god is overwhelmingly embarrassing. While you can’t say what happened when weird things are reported, it is very reasonable to say something happened. If people are making up stories they would make up believable ones. Because the transfiguration is so “unbelievable” they must have had a genuine mystical experience.

Finally, the idea that the supernatural stories about Jesus were just a pious fiction or a myth were clearly circulating in the early days of the church. The first reading from the second epistle of Peter says this:

Beloved:
We did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory,
“This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.
You will do well to be attentive to it,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Scholars debate whether 2 Peter is really written by Peter, (here’s a good article supporting Petrine authorship) but there is no reason to reject the idea that the epistle at least echoes Peter’s voice and may be based on Peter’s preaching. Therefore we can hear Peter himself correcting any idea that the Transfiguration was some kind of pious fiction.

De-mythologizers? They were clearly around within the first few decades of the church, and Peter puts paid to the idea that the supernatural dimension to the story is a “cleverly devised myth.”

Peter, the first pope, says clearly that he was an eyewitness to that extraordinary revelation.