Extracting the historical core of Jesus’ Transfiguration from the three different gospel accounts is the goal Jerome Murphy-O’Connor sets for himself in “What Really Happened at the Transfiguration?” Murphy-O’Connor uses techniques of literary criticism to enter the worlds of the early Christian communities and to reflect upon the traditions they received concerning Jesus. Tracing the development of the Transfiguration tradition, Murphy-O’Connor emphasizes that the motivation of the early Church was to preserve the vitality of tradition, not to record historical events. Professor of New Testament and intertestamental literature at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem, Murphy-O’Connor is […]