Bible Dictionaries
Tabor, Mount

　　TABOR, MOUNT.—A notable landmark, of rare beauty and symmetry, six miles east of Nazareth, on the north-east arm of the plain of Esdraelon. In the works of Josephus and the Septuagint its designation is Itabyrion; in Polybius, Atabyrion; elsewhere, Thabor. The modern Arabic name—identical with the name of the Mount of Olives—is Jebel et-Tur. Mount Tabor stands apart, clear and distinct, from the rugged elevations grouped around it, except on its western side, where a low narrow ridge connects it with the hills of Galilee. Its apparent isolation, and its noble domelike contour, rising directly from the level of the Plain,, make it the most conspicuous mountain in Lower Galilee. Its outline varies somewhat when viewed from different positions. As seen from the south and south-west, it resembles the segment of a sphere; from the north-west a truncated cone. Its true figure, according to W. M. Thomson, is an ‘elongated oval, the longitudinal diameter running nearly east and west.’ Its flattened summit, not easily distinguishable from the levels near its base, is 1400 feet above the average elevation of the plain, and almost 1900 above sea level. Like the hills south and west of it, Tabor is a mass of cretaceous limestone, and the soil on its summit and sides is deep and rich. It is conspicuous among the mountains of this section for its wooded slopes and leafy glades, as well as for its regular form and graceful outline, and yet it is not ‘densely wooded,’ as some have described it. There are dense clumps of undergrowth in places, but the trees, which for the most part are scrub and evergreen oaks, resemble the growth of an orchard or park rather than of a forest. The summit of the mountain is a flattened platform, oval in outline, and thickly strewn along its outer edges with ruined walls and massive substructions of different periods and styles of architecture.

　　A tradition as old as the 4th cent, locates the scene of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, and until the middle of the 19th cent, this was the generally accepted place of pilgrimage and devotion in commemoration of this event. The earliest references in this connexion are by Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome, and others (Cat. xii. 16; Epp. 44 and). In the 6th cent., three churches, corresponding to the three tabernacles of Peter (Mark 9:5), were built on its summit. Saewulf speaks of three monasteries (c. [Note: P Sinai and Palestine.] 419; Merrill, Galilee, 54; Robinson, BRP [Note: GHL Historical Geog. of Holy Land.] 394, 408, 417; C. W. Wilson in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible