Fasting and the transfiguration

[JohnClay]

Tellyontellyon also has a new thread about fasting but this is a bit different... (and since I'm a non-Christian I'm not allowed to post in his thread)

In the transfiguration Jesus appeared with Moses and Elijah. It looks liked Elijah fasted for 40 days in 1 Kings 19.

Exodus 34:28a says "Moses was there with the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights. He didn’t eat any food or drink any water."

I wonder how that is possible... maybe he was drinking non-water drinks like milk?

And Jesus also fasted for 40 days. I thought it was interesting that all three of the people involved in the transfiguration had fasted for 40 days.

So 40 days is almost 6 weeks...

Obesity: Problem, Solution, or Both? - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

says:

The Irish hunger strikers of the early 1980s illustrated the outcome of unsupplemented, prolonged, absolute fasting. They only drank water, and it was clear after six weeks that all involved had sustained significant weight loss and were mortally ill. By seven weeks, all were dead.

That's 49 days...

So it seems 40 days is very dangerous. Do Christians think that God was supernaturally helping those people in the Bible who fasted for 40 days?

 

[JohnC101]

I do believe that the grace of God, and His assistance, was involved to let them endure a 40 day fast.

 

[BobRyan]

Tellyontellyon also has a new thread about fasting but this is a bit different... (and since I'm a non-Christian I'm not allowed to post in his thread)

In the transfiguration Jesus appeared with Moses and Elijah. It looks liked Elijah fasted for 40 days in 1 Kings 19.

Exodus 34:28a says "Moses was there with the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights. He didn’t eat any food or drink any water."

I wonder how that is possible... maybe he was drinking non-water drinks like milk?

And Jesus also fasted for 40 days. I thought it was interesting that all three of the people involved in the transfiguration had fasted for 40 days.

So 40 days is almost 6 weeks...

Obesity: Problem, Solution, or Both? - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

says:


That's 49 days...

So it seems 40 days is very dangerous. Do Christians think that God was supernaturally helping those people in the Bible who fasted for 40 days?

yes , supernatural.

When Moses came down from the mountain his face shone so brightly that the people could not look at it.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Tellyontellyon also has a new thread about fasting but this is a bit different... (and since I'm a non-Christian I'm not allowed to post in his thread)

In the transfiguration Jesus appeared with Moses and Elijah. It looks liked Elijah fasted for 40 days in 1 Kings 19.

Exodus 34:28a says "Moses was there with the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights. He didn’t eat any food or drink any water."

I wonder how that is possible... maybe he was drinking non-water drinks like milk?

And Jesus also fasted for 40 days. I thought it was interesting that all three of the people involved in the transfiguration had fasted for 40 days.

So 40 days is almost 6 weeks...

Obesity: Problem, Solution, or Both? - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

says:


That's 49 days...

So it seems 40 days is very dangerous. Do Christians think that God was supernaturally helping those people in the Bible who fasted for 40 days?

FWIW, since God is Omnipotent, Self-Existent First Cause (and I will accept no lesser definition of "God"—nothing else is "God"), everything else is effect of his causing. Therefore, the existence of everything else is also "supernatural". If all we mean, then, is that going 40 days without water is "unusual", yes, indeed it is. And if that is all "miraculous" means, ok. Miracle. But that is no problem for God, who invented the usual and the laws of what we call "the natural".

 

[Veni]

the greatest task in life is to find reality. better the hard truth than comforting fantasy.

 

[JohnClay]

So the Bible mentions 3 people who fasted for 40 days... I wonder if any Christians have done a 40 day fast in modern times? (if they prayed enough, etc) I think some people in mental wards had tried to fast for dangerously long times...

 

[Paul4JC]

8 So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. [1Ki 19:8 NLT]

The interesting thing with Elijah is that he is traveling for 40 days and for nights, after " the food" that "gave him enough strength." Since it was an angel that fed him, the question arises, what food did he feed him? I believe it was a special form of "heavenly manna," or the "Bread of life."

Again, you already mentioned how difficult it would be to go on such a fast, yet Elijah traveled during his without eating, or was the angel feeding him daily bread? Either way it clear he was able to travel and then hike up to Mount Horeb. So I do see a supernatural element, at work here, namely Christ.

 

[JohnClay]

8 So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. [1Ki 19:8 NLT]

So it seems that for Moses and Elijah Mt Sinai was involved. For the transfiguration "tradition has identified it as Mount Tabor in Israel, though some scholars suggest Mount Hermon as another possibility"... (another Mount).
Though they both went to Mount Sinai, fasting for 40 days just having water is nowhere near as impressive as Moses' fast without water. I mean I thought Elijah would copy what Moses did...