Mount of transfiguration
Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 7:51 pm
Curious. Peter evidently was asleep when Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus. He evidently knew who they were, (...for you Moses and Elijah). How did he know?
It seems that there would be two possible ways in which Peter, James and John would have known that the two men talking to Jesus were Moses and Elijah:
1) by direct revelation. This was a vision (Matt.17:9), so the disciples were experiencing a divine revelation anyway. As one might, in a dream, meet some character unknown to him in real life, and simply "know" who it is, I suppose the same phenomenon could accompany a vision;
2) in the course of His conversation with Moses and Elijah, which the disciples overheard, it is possible that either Jesus or they made references either to their names or to other personal, identifying information (e.g., in their conversation with Jesus about "the exodus that He was going to accomplish in Jerusalem" —Luke 9:31—there might have been some discussion of the former exodus and Moses' role in it).
Either of these suggestions seem feasible to me, though we can't be sure which really is the answer to your question.