My first childhood inkling that my teachers weren’t telling the truth came when reading the ascensions in OT and NT. Obviously, the ascension of Jesus blew me away. Though raised fundamentalist, and later a more ‘liberated’ graduate of Princeton Seminary, I still carried silent doubts about all biblical authority, based originally on the ascension of Jesus. It was finally Bart who gave permission to openly question the existence of ANY religion whose authority is based on Sacred Texts. I’d call myself a Seeking Agnostic today, but still have never heard any scholar or teacher speak about the ascension of Jesus. I sense the doctrine is an embarrassment to the modern church — for good reason — but the silence is deafening. The issue begs to be discussed openly as to the historical rationale and the purported legitimacy of the claim.
I’ve googled the doctrine and found nothing published on the subject. It appears to be an amateur literary device to get rid of an obvious problem, and it became the missing brick that collapsed my wall. Did early church leaders actually believe the physical body of Jesus simply hoisted into the sky, as though by divine marionette? Was the purported event itself ever the subject of 4th century debate or even curiosity? And why is this absurdity still commemorated annually from pulpits and pews without comment or interpretation? It sure beats turning water into wine, about which much commentary has been expended.
Thanks for any help you can give me.
It’s interesting which stories or contradictions finally break the spell of fundamentalism and literalism. For me it’s the transfiguration scene. Jesus was not on a mountain where Moses and Elijah materialized and God himself spoke from heaven. It sometimes bothers me that historians act sometimes like they can not just say certain things did not happen. It is similar to philosophers who just can’t prove reality exists. It leads scholars to write in a way that confuses the non-scholar. Scholars are writing with several layers of unwritten shared presuppositions that non-scholars may not recognize.
Such scenes as the ascension and transfiguration (as well as Matthew relating the tombs breaking open and the dead rising upon Jesus’ death) also make me question the insisted on belief that the ancients thought in a completely different way than people do today. I suspect sometimes that Luke knew full well that Jesus did not literally float up into the air. After all in Luke, the author wrote of the ascension as though it happened the same day as the women going to the tomb and in Acts, the author wrote that it happened 40 days later. Perhaps Luke knew he was writing symbolically and perhaps his first readers or listeners recognized this also. Perhaps it was later readers and listeners in different communities who then took the symbolic as literal.
I also suspect that farmers, the poor and the urban populations in antiquity had a much firmer grasp of what is real and what is not than moderns will credit them with. Mythologies and religion in modern humans developed in a time frame of app. 100,000-5,000 BP, hunter-gatherers moving out of Africa into isolated groupings until the rise of farming in app 10,000 BP. The rise of civilization followed quickly by empires gave rural populations stern continually repeated lessons in what is real (power) when the empires fought over and then took possession of regions.
Thanks for your observations. I, too, found the transfiguration another deal breaker, and I made an unconscious choice to not even THINK about the tombs opening in Jerusalem, and all those dead thousands walking around Jerusalem! I think I realized if I actually contemplated it, the lovely music would suddenly stop.
I wish there were a way to know if the writers or scribes expected us to know their accounts of the ascension and transfiguration were metaphorical, or fantasized for purpose. I suspect we are giving them historical credit they don’t deserve. LOL. But you’re gracious to do so. Btw, what do you make of the tombs supposedly opening? Just added drama for impact? Oddly enough, these literary devices no longer work for me. They have instead made the unbelievable accounts of resurrection even more so. Does that resonant with your own thinking on these events?
Some time ago, I came across the book, “Jesus for the Non-Religious”, by Bishop John Shelby Spong. Bishop Spong is a former Episcopalian bishop, a theologian, who fully supports and endorses the Critical-Historical interpretation of the Bible. In addition to this, he is quite knowledgeable about the Hebrew Bible and draws some interesting correlations in his books between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Furthermore, since he is a theologian and not a critical-historian, he is not hampered about interpreting the meaning behind such stories as the transfiguration.
While I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, it was his insights that really opened my eyes to the possibility that many of the stories in the New Testament were never intended to be taken literally.
In regards to the Transfiguration, consider the following:
In the Jewish faith, the 5 books of Moses represent the Jewish Law. Furthermore, the books of the Prophets (such as Elijah) represent the Word of God. These two sets of books were believed to be the most important books in the Hebrew Bible. It is these two sets of books that were used to guide the life of the Jewish people at the time of Jesus.
In the Transfiguration story, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are all on the mountain top. In this story, God speaks out and says “Listen to Jesus”.
What does this story mean.
In this story, Moses represents “the Jewish Law”, and Elijah represents “the Prophets”.
God wants people to follow the words of Jesus instead of the Hebrew Bible; the Law and the Prophets.
Now, I’m not saying that this is the only, correct, or true meaning of the “Transformation” story, but it certainly makes more sense to me than any literal interpretation of this story.
Seems a stretch, but I always like Spong’s grace and determination to find meaning where some/none exists. But what kind of god would expect civilizations in centuries hence (with or without their own Bishop Spong) to figure out something so obtuse and erudite?
But I think at least we’re agreeing that both the transfiguration and the Jesus ascension were most likely literary devices which may, or may not, have had some obscure meaning to some believers at the time they were transmitted.
I often wonder what ELSE Paul and the gospel writers could have done to deal with the physical body of Jesus after the resurrection? That is, after he supposedly walked the earth, digested fish, and spoke with disciples, what else could they do but make him go “poof” into the sky? They clearly had a narrative problem at that point. If they said he continued to live to a ripe old age after resurrecting at gethsemane, then yet ANOTHER resurrection would be required after that. And another after that. So a sky hook may have been the only viable option they could fathom for their main character. It’s almost as though they got desperate at that point, having painted themselves into a corner.
I suppose I should spare the gospel writers, and instead focus my disappointment on the lack of questioning and curiosity on the part of the church for the next 2,000 years. I confess that I played the same game for far too long. I didn’t know what else to do, since the faith that held my world together was at stake.
JBSeth1 said
Some time ago, I came across the book, “Jesus for the Non-Religious”, by Bishop John Shelby Spong. Bishop Spong is a former Episcopalian bishop, a theologian, who fully supports and endorses the Critical-Historical interpretation of the Bible. In addition to this, he is quite knowledgeable about the Hebrew Bible and draws some interesting correlations in his books between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Furthermore, since he is a theologian and not a critical-historian, he is not hampered about interpreting the meaning behind such stories as the transfiguration.While I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, it was his insights that really opened my eyes to the possibility that many of the stories in the New Testament were never intended to be taken literally.
In regards to the Transfiguration, consider the following:
In the Jewish faith, the 5 books of Moses represent the Jewish Law. Furthermore, the books of the Prophets (such as Elijah) represent the Word of God. These two sets of books were believed to be the most important books in the Hebrew Bible. It is these two sets of books that were used to guide the life of the Jewish people at the time of Jesus.
In the Transfiguration story, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are all on the mountain top. In this story, God speaks out and says “Listen to Jesus”.
What does this story mean.
In this story, Moses represents “the Jewish Law”, and Elijah represents “the Prophets”.
God wants people to follow the words of Jesus instead of the Hebrew Bible; the Law and the Prophets.
Now, I’m not saying that this is the only, correct, or true meaning of the “Transformation” story, but it certainly makes more sense to me than any literal interpretation of this story.
May be it reflects a stage in the christological development of Jesus? Jesus is seen as on the same level as the Law and the Prophets, but still not on the right hand of God.
I could work with Spong’s interpretation, but I guess my question is a bit separate from any nuanced interpretation then and now. I’m not even sure what I’m asking, but something about the obtuseness of the story makes me wonder about the longterm intent (if there was such a thing) of this story, and the ascension of Jesus, and more accounts like them in the Hebrew and Christian bibles.
If we argue that illiterate believers in biblical times more naturally thought and understood in metaphors, so that these stories planted deep roots with immediate meaning in those times that they simply cannot claim in ours, then we’re saying that the Sacred Texts of Judaism and Christianity had a known and limited shelf life. That would indicate that sacred texts, while fascinating today, were not intended for later populations and times. Is that where we come out on these accounts? I could agree with that, which ultimately means the same accounts are not really useful or in any way authoritative today. Maybe someone should tell that to 21st century temples and churches before they take themselves too seriously. Or maybe it’s way too late for that!
What was the purpose in ascension? Lets look at John 3:13. No man could, nor has ascended to heaven and returned. Only the son of God who came from heaven could return. The ascension confirms the existence of heaven as witnessed by the only one who could return and prove it existed. Thus, only by following him, who’s way has been proven can man ascend.
Clearly there is a conflict with several others that had ascended before him. The purpose in the testimony however seems clear. John is steeped in Gnostic influence. Bart recently posted a summary of Sethian Gnosticism that is very well written. The concept of ascension was nothing new to the authors. It had been used many times prior to the Jesus story and has been used since then. Mohammad gets a ride to heaven on a human headed horse. Scientologists keep a room available for Ron Hubbard in the event of his return.
It is the return from ascension that seems most significant. It offers an attestation to the path for eternal life. The author of Mark seems to be stumped by the whole ordeal and just has the man disappear. Paul avoids the whole issue by starting with his vision post mortem. If the day turned to dark, the earth shook, angels escorted, a horse flew him, or he simply disappeared, the significance in the event seems to be his return.
Jack said
Thanks for your observations. I, too, found the transfiguration another deal breaker, and I made an unconscious choice to not even THINK about the tombs opening in Jerusalem, and all those dead thousands walking around Jerusalem! I think I realized if I actually contemplated it, the lovely music would suddenly stop.I wish there were a way to know if the writers or scribes expected us to know their accounts of the ascension and transfiguration were metaphorical, or fantasized for purpose. I suspect we are giving them historical credit they don’t deserve. LOL. But you’re gracious to do so. Btw, what do you make of the tombs supposedly opening? Just added drama for impact? Oddly enough, these literary devices no longer work for me. They have instead made the unbelievable accounts of resurrection even more so. Does that resonant with your own thinking on these events?
Jack, the tombs in Jerusalem did not open, it is a fabrication inserted in Matthew by the enemy of Christianity, this is why I believe that.
) In Matthew 27:52-53 we trustfully read: “And the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.”
I believe that the above two verses report something which never took place and therefore those lies are used to divert our attention from the Lord, because it is impossible for it to have occurred before or after the resurrection of the Lord, for we read in 2Timothy 2:18 about: “Men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and thus they upset the faith of some.”
In Acts 2:29, Peter says, “Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.” So Peter effectively says some time after the day of Pentecost that the body of David is still in his tomb (Confirmed by Acts 2:30-36) It is reasonable for us to assume that if the body of King David did not qualify for that alleged resurrection we can be certain that it never took place.
In addition to that, the numbers of anomalies that those two verses contain are also an indication that our Lord never dictated them because:
1) The resurrection of the body will take place on the last day (Read John 11:24, 1Corinthians 15:52, and all of chapter 20 of Revelation.)
2) It should be obvious to anyone that even if those verses in Matthew were true, they are written in the wrong place and therefore are not in harmony with what was actually taking place. Jesus had just died and the alleged resurrection supposedly took place after His resurrection, so why write it there?
3) If the alleged resurrection was after the Lord’s resurrection, why is it conveniently connected with the strange natural things that were happening in relation with the Son of God’s death? (Earthquake etc.)
4) Also if those verses were true, the resurrection of our Lord with His heavenly body would become one of many and no longer one of a kind.
5) Any Christian writer would have known that Jerusalem was no longer the “Holy City” because the presence of God was no longer in the temple (read Matthew 23:38) and the city’s destruction had been foretold (read Mark 13:2).
6) We should also consider that the above verses do nothing to advance the knowledge of God but they are used extensively by the untaught to promote their own useless fantasies. Those who do not understand the Word preach best through their fleshly imagination by abandoning themselves to colourfully speculate what Jesus supposedly did while He was dead in the tomb.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 says it all: “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the Knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
In other words, speculations are to be treated with the contempt they deserve, but the truth is supported by a variety of thought (or Scriptures) which are relevant to our every day lives and behaviour pleasing to Christ. The above is from the book “The Way God Told It”
Rosekeister said
It’s interesting which stories or contradictions finally break the spell of fundamentalism and literalism. For me it’s the transfiguration scene. Jesus was not on a mountain where Moses and Elijah materialized and God himself spoke from heaven. It sometimes bothers me that historians act sometimes like they can not just say certain things did not happen. It is similar to philosophers who just can’t prove reality exists. It leads scholars to write in a way that confuses the non-scholar. Scholars are writing with several layers of unwritten shared presuppositions that non-scholars may not recognize.Such scenes as the ascension and transfiguration (as well as Matthew relating the tombs breaking open and the dead rising upon Jesus’ death) also make me question the insisted on belief that the ancients thought in a completely different way than people do today. I suspect sometimes that Luke knew full well that Jesus did not literally float up into the air. After all in Luke, the author wrote of the ascension as though it happened the same day as the women going to the tomb and in Acts, the author wrote that it happened 40 days later. Perhaps Luke knew he was writing symbolically and perhaps his first readers or listeners recognized this also. Perhaps it was later readers and listeners in different communities who then took the symbolic as literal.
I also suspect that farmers, the poor and the urban populations in antiquity had a much firmer grasp of what is real and what is not than moderns will credit them with. Mythologies and religion in modern humans developed in a time frame of app. 100,000-5,000 BP, hunter-gatherers moving out of Africa into isolated groupings until the rise of farming in app 10,000 BP. The rise of civilization followed quickly by empires gave rural populations stern continually repeated lessons in what is real (power) when the empires fought over and then took possession of regions.
The ascension of Jesus is true, believed or not; there is no much discussion about it because, it is not in our realm, we have no much information about it: it happened and that is that. Like Him walking on water.
Great topic. Some great responses too. I like Azeus’s explanation. If the core message of the gospel that both Jesus and Paul preached was that the kingdom was coming soon in the clouds, then the story narrative has to exit the main character stage up. So Matthew and Luke fill in what Mark left out for the average listener, heck, any listener, to make sense of the story direction from the beginning to what comes next/the whole point of the story. And as for our original disappointment that the story didn’t have a better way of ending than this lame exit to set the stage for the upshot…I can’t think of a better exit either (with their technology/props- hot air balloons are 1700 years away). Corporeal ascension seems better than “poof”, disappearance because I don’t think they had Chinese fireworks yet (that was Marco Polo’s to bring back, no?) to mimic 19th or 20th century magicians. Maybe just seems deflating to modern ears and eyes spoiled by CGI.
Jack said
My first childhood inkling that my teachers weren’t telling the truth came when reading the ascensions in OT and NT. Obviously, the ascension of Jesus blew me away. Though raised fundamentalist, and later a more ‘liberated’ graduate of Princeton Seminary, I still carried silent doubts about all biblical authority, based originally on the ascension of Jesus. It was finally Bart who gave permission to openly question the existence of ANY religion whose authority is based on Sacred Texts. I’d call myself a Seeking Agnostic today, but still have never heard any scholar or teacher speak about the ascension of Jesus. I sense the doctrine is an embarrassment to the modern church — for good reason — but the silence is deafening. The issue begs to be discussed openly as to the historical rationale and the purported legitimacy of the claim.I’ve googled the doctrine and found nothing published on the subject. It appears to be an amateur literary device to get rid of an obvious problem, and it became the missing brick that collapsed my wall. Did early church leaders actually believe the physical body of Jesus simply hoisted into the sky, as though by divine marionette? Was the purported event itself ever the subject of 4th century debate or even curiosity? And why is this absurdity still commemorated annually from pulpits and pews without comment or interpretation? It sure beats turning water into wine, about which much commentary has been expended.
Thanks for any help you can give me.
I wondered several times why after the resurrection, Jesus didn’t appear before more people, including Nicodemus and others who were part of persecuting or crucifying him? I mean, why not appear before the Roman Senate? That would really have made believers out of them.
For what its worth, Mike Licona describes the rising saints in Matthew as poetic. Im not familiar with his argument, but I dont know what evidence there would be for its poetic nature. Its not like it’s written like there once were some saints from Nantucket…. However, describing it as lies is also premature. Suppose, for the sake of argument, the ascencion is a way of describing exaltation. Again the question is whats the evidence? Also, if we can talk about things as poetry and metaphor, what reason do we have to think the ressurection itself isn’t poetry?
simonelli
It happened and that’s that is neither an argument, evidence or an explanation. I suppose that sort of claim is acceptable in church, bible studies etc. But here you need to offer more than what flies with the amen corner.
If it did, in fact, happen, then it shouldn’t be difficult to produce evidence or at least an explanation beyond bare assertion. That’s pretty much the standard at work here; so if you have any lets hear it.
Jack said
Thanks for your observations. I, too, found the transfiguration another deal breaker, and I made an unconscious choice to not even THINK about the tombs opening in Jerusalem, and all those dead thousands walking around Jerusalem!
The forum recently discussed the tombs opening in a thread entitled “Matthew 27:50-53” in the “Historical Jesus” topic. One thing we discussed was how film adaptations of the Gospels never include the walking-dead saints because some things would just look silly if portrayed in film. I think the same point applies to the Ascension. Hollywood movies do not show Jesus rising up into a cloud as described in Acts. The Roma Downey version of the Ascension looks like Scotty beamed Jesus up to the Enterprise. I don’t remember seeing the Transfiguration in any movie.
Lawyerskeptic said
Jack said
Thanks for your observations. I, too, found the transfiguration another deal breaker, and I made an unconscious choice to not even THINK about the tombs opening in Jerusalem, and all those dead thousands walking around Jerusalem!The forum recently discussed the tombs opening in a thread entitled “Matthew 27:50-53” in the “Historical Jesus” topic. One thing we discussed was how film adaptations of the Gospels never include the walking-dead saints because some things would just look silly if portrayed in film. I think the same point applies to the Ascension. Hollywood movies do not show Jesus rising up into a cloud as described in Acts. The Roma Downey version of the Ascension looks like Scotty beamed Jesus up to the Enterprise. I don’t remember seeing the Transfiguration in any movie.
Well I have no religious belief but I do admire eastern orthodox icons as art. And one of my favorites (in fact I have a print in my office) is the traditional icon of the transfiguration. ** you do not have permission to see this link ** is a particularly nice example.
However my point is that you could make a kickass Jesus movie if you did not have to cater to the sensibilities of the pious. Go back to the original stories and scrape off the sentimentality and smash the stained glass. They are powerful stories and the book of Mark especially at times goes full bore spooky. If you filmed the gospel of Mark just as it’s written it would immediately be the most controversial Jesus film every made. The average churchgoer is so ignorant of what the gospels really say that they would go apesh*t.
Yes, the ascension always seemed odd to me because it was a physical body in some sense and then it is legitimate to ask where it went. Fits a primitive cosmology where heaven is an actual place over our heads someplace but that clearly can no longer fly. But even more bothersome, the idea that Jesus still had wounds from being crucified, wounds that remained in a resurrected and supposedly “glorified” body REALLY bugged me, from the first time I heard that. So, what if he’d been decapitated? So, what if he’d been burned alive or drawn and quartered? You have to wonder how that body even functioned. No blood from the wounds, so bloodless? If bloodless or no pumping heart, in what sense was it even alive? It is said that he spoke. Well, speech requires lungs pushing air through vocal chords. How does that work in a resurrected body with lingering physical trauma and no detectable life signs? One can say, oh, it is all a wonderful mystery. I say: baloney. Rancid baloney. When mystery lapses into patent absurdity, it is precisely that: absurdity. Nonsense.
Yes the Ascension assumes the old three-tiered flat earth cosmology. (As does the temptation of Jesus. How could you take Jesus up on a high mountain and show him all the kingdoms of the earth if you didn’t think the earth was flat?) And the Ascension was also seen quite literally. Jesus physically rose up to the third heaven where God is enthroned. As far as the wounds and Jesus eating I think this was a response to certain groups who doubted Jesus was really human. What came to be called Doceticism. It’s interesting to speculate if the earliest believers thought the resurrection was a physical resuscitation. I’m not sure Paul does.
We shouldn’t forget the Virgin Mary, another bodily ascension, although that is a Catholic thing. Before Luther, wasn’t all of Christianity a Catholic thing? With regard to uniquely Catholic things, I’ve always wondered about the “letters from heaven” at Fatima– did the stationary have water marks? What was the rag content? Did the Virgin make a trip to a local stationers, or was it something very special, a paper reserved for Divine correspondence? And what about the ink! And the printing, or handwriting! Many questions, obviously. But what always floors me: people, at least some people, simply believe, and never, ever question. Even more amazing when that sort of abysmal and abyssal credulity is held to be a great virtue!!
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