Is the Ascension Story an Embellishment?

[whag]

I appreciate the kind words, I really do, but let's not make this about me.

Too late. Hahaha. It's already devolved enough to where we can dissect the exchange. Kudos to you for engaging an obviously angry skeptic withoit calling him a fundy atheist. At least you don't make it boring.

[robrecht]

Too late. Hahaha. It's already devolved enough to where we can dissect the exchange. Kudos to you for engaging an obviously angry skeptic withoit calling him a fundy atheist. At least you don't make it boring.

That's probably the nicest thing anyone has said about me all day. But, to be honest, you don't have much competition.

[Adrift]

I didn't sew discord between you and Dee Dee.

Dee Dee thought that it was okay for men to physically punish their wives through adult spankings. You don't have to be a Christian to have a problem with that.

My paltry .5 posts a day isn't the pleasure delivery system you'd like to think it is.

Those .5 posts a day go a long way in demonstrating my point. You don't have to comb through much of your post history to come to that conclusion.

[psstein]

The Bible was written by men.

Which is completely consistent with the Roman Catholic Church's approach to the Scriptures.

I don't know why a lot of "skeptics" think that Christians think the Bible just fell from the sky. I find that a common misconception.

Gary, are you on your way to becoming a crypto-Catholic???

[Juvenal]

My only point is to try and understand the point and perspective of the author and his audience. To me this is worth my time and effort. An argument for or against some poorly defined idea of the supernatural totally misses the mark. Any god whose existence can be proved, disproven, or definitively doubted is not God. For Luke, God is known in the community and in the resurrected Christ who is at work in the community, in the Eucharist, and in history. He is real.

I seek to make the Creator and God of love into my God as best I can understand and follow. I do think Jesus was particularly effective in teaching about this God and moral behavior toward others, but that may just be the tradition I was born into.

The Bible was written by men.

I've been tempted to draw you out on your beliefs more than once, but hesitated out of concern that many of your fellow Christians would find your honest answers discomforting. The response to your first answer above confirms my caution. I've been following that thread. But, with the cork out of the bottle, so to speak ...

I find myself in marked agreement with your assessment of a humanly provable, or even disputable, god capable of creating any universe, including our own. Any such god could never hope to be more than an exalted human, in my estimation. Any truly divine aspect, by its very supernaturality, would be inconceivable to us.

But, as you'll have noted already, I go further, as I see no reason to believe such a god must be unique, and hence deserving to be designated as God. Uniqueness is very difficult to prove.

I don't see the appeal in worshiping a creator deity in any case. I can't imagine such a deity desiring worship to begin with, and to the extent a created being made the attempt, they'd necessarily fall so far short as to make the worship itself a mockery. Visualize a race of beetles, for example, making shrines to the creator of the dunghill they require for their continued existence, and then draw out the analogy to encompass the scores of further orders of magnitude needed to represent what we've learned is our infinitesimally tiny place in the universe.

The more we learn about a god capable of creating our universe, the more we see that god can never, in any meaningful sense, by own own, in my humble opinion.

[Juvenal]

sewing discord

sew discord

Not that I don't get a sick kick out of needling you guys on this one, but this ain't Dee Dee's Big Bad Sewing Thread.

[Adrift]

The more we learn about a god capable of creating our universe, the more we see that god can never, in any meaningful sense, by own own, in my humble opinion.

[whag]

Not that I don't get a sick kick out of needling you guys on this one, but this ain't Dee Dee's Big Bad Sewing Thread.

Hahaha I get it. Needling. Sewing. Thread.

[whag]

Dee Dee thought that it was okay for men to physically punish their wives through adult spankings. You don't have to be a Christian to have a problem with that.

That's a lie. If there's an archive where you can demonstrate that, then present the evidence. Otherwise it's pure slander to make such a claim without the evidence, and you know it.

Moderated By: DesertBerean

Whag, just a reminder that you must prove any accusation of lying, per campus decoram. Since Adrift has responded to your challenge anyway, we'll let it go this time.

***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.***
Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publicly complain or whine, please take it to the Padded Room unless told otherwise.

[Adrift]

That's a lie. If there's an archive where you can demonstrate that, then present the evidence. Otherwise it's pure slander to make such a claim without the evidence, and you know it.

http://tinyurl.com/gkqyacx

[Gary]

Anyone interested in getting back to the topic of the thread: Why is the Ascension Story only mentioned by one gospel author who admits that he was not an eyewitness to the event?

[seanD]

Anyone interested in getting back to the topic of the thread: Why is the Ascension Story only mentioned by one gospel author who admits that he was not an eyewitness to the event?

Here's an article that discusses the topic of 911, yet doesn't even mention anything about the three collapsing WTC towers. How can that be when the collapsing towers was the most psychologically pivotal event of 911? The author apparently had a different objective and was writing to a high context audience that was already familiar with it. And yet the ascension isn't important to the Christian faith than the resurrection as the WTC towers collapsing is important to 911 and how all those people horribly died.

[Abigail]

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.

From I. Howard Marshall Acts (ie scholarship being quoted here Gary)


The resurrection is firmly attested elsewhere: 1 Tim 3:16 , 1 Peter 3:21f

Bethany was a village lying on the east slope of the hill cf Luke 19:29 "When he drew near to Beth'phage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples,"

A sabbath day's journey ( about 1.2km or 3/4 mile) is a Jewish expression and not meant to imply that the event took place on a Sabbath, the point being that the ascension took place in the near vicinity of Jerusalem.

[robrecht]

I've been tempted to draw you out on your beliefs more than once, but hesitated out of concern that many of your fellow Christians would find your honest answers discomforting. The response to your first answer above confirms my caution. I've been following that thread. But, with the cork out of the bottle, so to speak ...

I find myself in marked agreement with your assessment of a humanly provable, or even disputable, god capable of creating any universe, including our own. Any such god could never hope to be more than an exalted human, in my estimation. Any truly divine aspect, by its very supernaturality, would be inconceivable to us.

But, as you'll have noted already, I go further, as I see no reason to believe such a god must be unique, and hence deserving to be designated as God. Uniqueness is very difficult to prove.

I don't see the appeal in worshiping a creator deity in any case. I can't imagine such a deity desiring worship to begin with, and to the extent a created being made the attempt, they'd necessarily fall so far short as to make the worship itself a mockery. Visualize a race of beetles, for example, making shrines to the creator of the dunghill they require for their continued existence, and then draw out the analogy to encompass the scores of further orders of magnitude needed to represent what we've learned is our infinitesimally tiny place in the universe.

The more we learn about a god capable of creating our universe, the more we see that god can never, in any meaningful sense, by own own, in my humble opinion.

I like the dunghill analogy; it is a paragraph worthy of Kilgore Trout. It also reminds me of the gnostic, world denigrating approach of a Marcion, in which the creator god or demiurge was indeed not worthy of worship. It's a good solution to the problem of evil, perhaps, but so far from the Judaeo-Christian view of creation. I've always been struck by the medieval idea of the transcendentals, whereby all being is seen as one and commensurate with goodness and truth (unum, bonum, verum). This approach is so imbued with faith.

I think you may have left something out of your last paragraph, perhaps something about the futility of our worship being of no benefit of God? Worship is nothing more than love, which benefits everyone in a relationship. It is good to love and be loved. Imagine being in a love relationship with the creator of the whole universe. Astounding. Thomas believes that the best biblical analogy for the love of God is that of friendship for our love for our friends is not owed as is our love for our parents, to whom we owe our very being. Parents are obligated to love their children, who are likewise obligated to love their parents, but the love of God, ours for him and his for us, is much more than that. It is the love of friendship.

[whag]

http://tinyurl.com/gkqyacx

I wanted to access more of the discussion, not just the first page. I got an error when I tried to navigate.

From what i remember, Dee Dee's position seems to be that husbands and wives can spank each other. Um...okay. I agree with you that's bit twisted, but I wouldn't get my feathers in a ruff about it unless she was advocating something more sexist and cruel in the ensuing discussion. I don't remember that she did. I just remember your sowing discord and it getting ugly.