Luke 9:30
Luke 9:3030Suddenly two men, Moses and Elijah, began talking with Jesus.
The Transfiguration is treated by JW publications as a vision — uses the Greek horama — and therefore not as evidence that Moses and Elijah were actually present and conscious. The scene is reframed as a symbolic preview of Christ's coming Kingdom glory, with Moses and Elijah as figurative representations of the Law and the Prophets rather than as conscious individuals conversing with Jesus. Soul-sleep doctrine requires this reframing — Moses had been dead for over fourteen centuries.
Visions in Scripture reveal real heavenly realities, not fictional sets. Stephen's vision in showed Jesus actually standing at God's right hand — no one argues Jesus was not really there. Peter's vision in Acts 10 conveyed a real divine command. If the Transfiguration was a vision, it was a vision OF something — and the something is Moses, who had died (), and Elijah, who had not (), conversing with Jesus. The Watchtower's "vision" defence concedes the point: even in visions God depicts the dead as conscious, never as non-existent. Pair with to see what they were conversing about — Jesus's "departure" (exodos) at Jerusalem, which a non-existent Moses could not foreknow.