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monotheistic traditions as the closest earthly places to God's abode and thus as the
natural settings for theophanies.
The history of the three religious traditions can be read as a cumulative process.
For Christians, Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled by Christ, the Messiah and
Son of God; Judaism is therefore regarded as the 'first act' of the history of hu-
man salvation. Muslims in turn envisage their religion as the completed and univer-
sal version of the same primordial, monotheistic faith revealed at different times
through different prophets, starting with Abraham and Moses, continuing with
Jesus, and culminating with Muhammad. For this reason, Old Testament theophanic
sites are considered sacred in all the three traditions and have often been contested
places. Among the plethora of Old Testament high places (see Semple, 1932, p. 519)
Sinai and Zion stand out across the three traditions. Separated by nearly 400 km,
these mountains embody opposite and yet complementary poles of Judaic tradition.
Craggy, barren, awe-inspiring, Sinai is the peak of the covenant and the law. On
the summit of this 2288m-high massif located in the southern part of the desert
peninsula after which it is named (one of the most arid regions of the world), Moses
received the Commandments 'in a dark cloud of thick smoke' (Exodus 19: 9; 1
Kings 19: 8-13). Zion, on the other hand, was the beautiful site of the Temple and
the priest, the capital city and mountain of the kings (Bernbaum, 1997, p. 102). The
opposed physical geographies of the two sites can be interpreted metaphorically:
In the history of Judaism, Sinai, the rugged peak of the wilderness, gives way
to Zion, the cultivated mountain of civilization.
The voice that sounded in the
open space of the desert now echoes in the narrow streets of [Jerusalem]. Zion
incorporates and fulfils in human society the meaning of the lonely encounter on
Sinai. Sinai is the mountain of the beginning, Zion the mountain of the end.
Bernbaum (1997, p. 102)
...
The Sinai-Zion dichotomy can also be read within the history of Christianity
and in the schism that in 1054 AD split the Christian Mediterranean between the
Latin and Eastern Churches: the former making Mount Zion a model for the Vatican
in Rome with the pope, whose authority the Eastern branch rejected, as the 'high
priest of Christianity'; the latter identifying with Sinai a prefiguration of Tabor and
the mystical experience of
theosis
, or union with God, to which every Orthodox
Christian is called (Bernbaum, 1997, p. 103).
Here Tabor emerges as a third pole. Rising to an altitude of no more of 575m asl,
the lofty hill pops up almost unexpectedly from the flat landscape of lower Galilee
(Figure 7.2a). As with other Mediterranean holy peaks of antiquity, the visual con-
trast is enough to justify its biblical epithet of 'high mountain' (Matthew 17: 1). Its
modest altitude and gentle shape are elevated and dramatized by Byzantine iconog-
raphy (Figure 7.2b). On icons of the Transfiguration, Tabor is usually portrayed as
a craggy peak topped by the transfigured Christ. The mountain is in turn transfig-
ured in the two Old Testament peaks (Horeb topped by Elijah on the left and Sinai
