Is the Ascension Story an Embellishment?

[Gary]

It is one thing to claim that your dead friend appeared to you, or even appeared to you and a group of friends. It is quite another to claim that your dead friend appeared to you and a group of friends and then levitated/ascended into a cloud! Yet this is the claim that Christians make regarding Jesus. After coming back from the dead, walking out of a sealed tomb, in a heavenly/supernatural body, Christians allege that Jesus rose from the earth, in front of multiple witnesses, and disappeared behind a cloud. Here is the source of this story:

Gospel of Luke:

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. 51 While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and were continually in the temple blessing God.

Book of Acts:

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.

Analysis:

Even most skeptics believe that these two books were written by the same (anonymous) author. For simplicity, we will call him “Luke”. Luke admits in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke that he was not an eyewitness to any of these events. However, he assures his readers that he obtained his information from reliable sources. The question is: Were his sources reliable? Well, we don’t know because he never tells us who his sources are! But let’s compare these two accounts of the same event, written by the same author. There are a couple of things that stand out to me:

First, the account in Luke states that the Ascension took place in Bethany, which is about five miles from Jerusalem. The Book of Acts says it took place on the Mount of Olivet, a Sabbath’s day journey, which I believe is one mile. Why this apparent discrepancy when the stories were written by the same author?

Secondly, why no mention of angels in the Gospel of Luke’s account of this event? It isn’t as if angels appear to people every day! If angels appeared after Jesus had lifted off, wouldn’t that be something you would record? Well, maybe “Luke” didn’t find it important to his “theme” or maybe he had run out of scroll…

Hmm.

But that is not all that is strange about this supernatural story. And this is the whopper: No other Gospel author mentions this story! In fact, no other author of any book in the New Testament mentions this story!

The first Gospel written, Mark, says nothing about an ascension or even post-resurrection appearances…in the original. But remember, the author of Mark never claims to have been a witness to any of these events.

What about the Gospel of Matthew? If this gospel were written by the Apostle Matthew, he would have been an eyewitness to this fantastic supernatural event. So what does Matthew say about the Ascension? Answer: Not one word! The Gospel of Matthew ends with Jesus giving the disciples the Great Commission…on a mountain in Galilee!

What about the Gospel of John? If this gospel were written by the Apostle John, he would have been an eyewitness to this fantastic supernatural event. So what does John say about the Ascension? Answer: Not one word! The Gospel of John ends with Jesus appearing to his disciples on the shores of the Sea of Tiberius, where he cooks them a fish breakfast.

So we are asked to believe that a resurrected dead body ascended/levitated into the clouds…but none of the eyewitnesses bothered to record it. Amazing! But the bizarreness of this story doesn’t end there. The majority of scholars doubt that the longer ending of the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark is original. Most scholars believe it was a later addition to the text. And what do we find in this added, longer version to the original Gospel of Mark? Answer: a truncated version of an Ascension! But in this Ascension story, the disciples are not on a mountain outside of Jerusalem or a mountain in Bethany, they are reclining at a table! In the longer addition to Mark, Jesus appears to the Eleven, gives them the Great Commission, tells them that true believers can drink poison/handle poisonous snakes and not be harmed, and then after he had spoken, was taken into heaven.

Huh? The Ascension occurred while the Eleven were reclining at a table? What happened to the mountain top Ascension??

Some Christians will try to shoehorn the “mountain top” Ascension into this story, like this:

Jesus appears to the reclining Eleven, gives the Great Commission and immunity to poison, and then, “After he had spoken (and had taken them out to a mountain top, a couple of hours later,) he ascended into heaven.”

Wow! If that isn’t spin, I don’t know what is!

So what do we have, folks? We have a claim of a group of people seeing Jesus and Jesus doing a miraculous act: ascending into the sky. Yet, only one author records this event, and he was not an eyewitness! And the two versions of the story written by this one non-eyewitness occur in two different geographical locations! One version, the later version, has angels added to the story! We also have evidence that the Church tacked a version of this story onto the original Gospel of Mark, but forgot that the Lukan versions have Jesus lifting off from a mountain…unless you want to believe that there were recliners on the top of the mountain…

This story is clearly an embellishment. Yet conservative Christians today believe it to be an absolute historical fact.

But what does this story say about other claims made in the Gospels and in First Corinthians regarding “appearances” by a dead person? If you are honest, it should make you very skeptical, especially about claims made by only one author, who was not an eyewitness to the event in question, such as the claim by Paul that five hundred people saw Jesus at once.

These stories are not reliable, and they are highly improbable.

This story is just one of the many holes in the Christian supernatural-based belief system. If we can’t trust this “appearance” claim, why should we trust any of the others?

Open your eyes, folks. It is a tall tale.

[Bill the Cat]

No. It isn't

[Jedidiah]

No, it is not.

[One Bad Pig]

Wake me up when Gary says anything new.

[Truthseeker]

Premise A: The Universe, including all humans, exists and evolves according to the current consensual set of physical (natural) principles of physics. The set is complete--it is all we need to know about the universe.
or
Premise B: God created the observable universe and sustains it. But there exist things beside God that we can't study scientifically.

Gary, I guess you would insist that premise A is much more probable than B. I on the other hand would say that we need much more than scientific evidence to do more than guess what the "case" probabilities of these premises are. (This sentence is for the readers who need a reminder: "Case" probabilities differ in kind from "scientific" probabilities.)

[Gary]

Premise A: The Universe, including all humans, exists and evolves according to the current consensual set of physical (natural) principles of physics. The set is complete--it is all we need to know about the universe.
or
Premise B: God created the observable universe and sustains it. But there exist things beside God that we can't study scientifically.

Gary, I guess you would insist that premise A is much more probable than B. I on the other hand would say that we need much more than scientific evidence to do more than guess what the "case" probabilities of these premises are. (This sentence is for the readers who need a reminder: "Case" probabilities differ in kind from "scientific" probabilities.)

I think that both statements are irrational and illogical. A better statement is this:

"We have no idea...yet...as to the origin of the universe. But instead of throwing up our hands in despair and using the ol' standby explanation---"a god did it"---let's keep investigating and searching for the answer."

Unfortunately, many Christians believe that there is a direct link between believing the supernatural claims of the Bible and believing in a Creator. The truth is, no such correlation can be proven. It is very possible that the Resurrection and Ascension are purely mythical events and this would have no effect on the question of whether a Creator God or Gods exist/exists. The existence of a Creator God in no way validates the existence of Yahweh-Jesus Christ.

[Bill the Cat]

BTdubs... Bethany is only roughly 1.5 miles from Jerusalem, or roughly a "Sabbath day's journey", not 5 miles

[psstein]

Bauckham's work, while flawed in other places, exhaustively discusses Luke's sources. It's not worth discussing if you haven't at least looked at it.

[Gary]

Bauckham's work, while flawed in other places, exhaustively discusses Luke's sources. It's not worth discussing if you haven't at least looked at it.

Can Bauckman prove with 100% certainty the sources for Luke's gospel and prove that we can be 100% certain of the accuracy of their testimony?

Answer: Of course not. The best he can do is tell us that he has a high degree of confidence in the sources of Luke's story. Again, educated, rational people must ask themselves this all important question: Which is more probable? That Bauckman is wrong or that "resurrected" dead bodies really do levitate into the clouds?

It's all a matter of probabilities, Stein. If you believe that levitating bodies are more probable than an imminent scholar being wrong, you have demonstrated to all your irrationality.

[Bill the Cat]

You-are-literally-too-stupid-to-insult.gif

[Gary]

BTdubs... Bethany is only roughly 1.5 miles from Jerusalem, or roughly a "Sabbath day's journey", not 5 miles

I checked and we are both wrong. Bethany is TWO miles from Jerusalem and a Sabbath journey is actually 0.5 miles (2,000 cubits). So to have traveled to Bethany is not the same as traveling a Sabbath journey. Even if the distance to Bethany is 1.5 miles, the difference between 1.5 miles and 0.5 miles is huge...for Jews considering a short trip on the Sabbath. To say that 1.5 miles is approximately 0.5 miles is preposterous.

There is still a discrepancy.

[Gary]

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Ever consider using your brain more than your mouth in your discussions, Bill? Calling me an idiot does not change the fact that your Ascension story has more holes than Swiss cheese. Try again.

[robrecht]

Gary, what exactly do you mean by 'an embellishment'? Are you speaking of 'actual events' vs 'fictional elements'?

I propose that there is a totally different category, namely that of a 'literary device' that is not meant to relate to actual historical events or fabricated nonhistorical events intended to be understood and falsely accepted as historical events, but rather to to the artistic construction of literary and dramatic works. In this sense, the ascension of Jesus functions as something like but also opposite to the well known contemporary literary device known as the deus ex machina (Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός). Rather than resolve the tension of a tragedy or comedy, the ascension at the end of the gospel of Luke and the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles actually sets up the continuation of the story of Jesus and the Holy Spirit among his people that follows in the Acts of the Apostles.

If this is correct, the Ascension is not to be understood as primarily as an historical event or embellishment intended as a fabricated quasi-historical event, but rather as a dramatic pause between the first and second volumes of Luke's literary work. It would be comparable to the meal on the road to Emmaus during which the presence of Jesus was made known to his disciples in the Eucharistic breaking of the bread.

Thoughts?

[seanD]

First, the account in Luke states that the Ascension took place in Bethany, which is about five miles from Jerusalem. The Book of Acts says it took place on the Mount of Olivet, a Sabbath’s day journey, which I believe is one mile. Why this apparent discrepancy when the stories were written by the same author?

Secondly, why no mention of angels in the Gospel of Luke’s account of this event? It isn’t as if angels appear to people every day! If angels appeared after Jesus had lifted off, wouldn’t that be something you would record? Well, maybe “Luke” didn’t find it important to his “theme” or maybe he had run out of scroll…

I'm not sure what you're arguing in the first paragraph, but I"m assuming you're saying that the author contradicted himself in his own two works. Why would he do that though? Assuming Luke wrote both works, which you and I agree, and I'm sure you assume he was redacting his work, why would he not fix the contradiction, assuming that you are right and it is a contradiction?

In the second paragraph, you actually proved the historical legitimacy of the story, or at least Luke's attempt to record it as accurately as it was described to him, as opposed to other stories of miracle ascensions into heaven written in that era that are garnished with religious spectacle.

[Gary]

Gary, what exactly do you mean by 'an embellishment'? Are you speaking of 'actual events' vs 'fictional elements'?

I propose that there is a totally different category, namely that of a 'literary device' that is not meant to relate to actual historical events or fabricated nonhistorical events intended to be understood and falsely accepted as historical events, but rather to to the artistic construction of literary and dramatic works. In this sense, the ascension of Jesus functions as something like but also opposite to the well known contemporary literary device known as the deus ex machina (Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός). Rather than resolve the tension of a tragedy or comedy, the ascension at the end of the gospel of Luke and the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles actually sets up the continuation of the story of Jesus and the Holy Spirit among his people that follows in the Acts of the Apostles.

If this is correct, the Ascension is not to be understood as primarily as an historical event or embellishment intended as a fabricated quasi-historical event, but rather as a dramatic pause between the first and second volumes of Luke's literary work. It would be comparable to the meal on the road to Emmaus during which the presence of Jesus was made known to his disciples in the Eucharistic breaking of the bread.

Thoughts?

When I use the term "embellishment" I am not insinuating, necessarily, that someone lied. I believe that embellishments are a natural part of any oral story that is retold, over and over again, over many years/decades.

It is certainly possible that many of the "events" told in the Gospels were not meant to be taken literally. Maybe the entire Resurrection story is a theological construct, not an historical one. Maybe Bishop Spong is right: Jesus' resurrection was spiritual in nature, not physical. Maybe the authors of the Bible would be horrified to know that millions of Jesus followers, for the last 2,000 years, have come to believe that his dead body was literally resurrected, based on their theological allegories.

The bottom line is this: We will never know. These books were written by anonymous authors, decades after the alleged events, in far away lands, for purposes we can only...assume...