it is interesting to note as well, that the New Testament is not the first book to record ascensions into Heaven. Example Elijah and Enoch.
Ascensions were not unknown in ancient mythologies. Examples: Adamu of Sumaria and Hercules.
What is more compelling to me is why the story of an ascension holds such power over our minds? Is it the hope that it is possible to bypass death? Or is there some other message behind ascension stories?
Might as well ask why people saw birds overhead and yearned to fly. Or looked at the moon and wondered what it was like there.
If we’d been content with our lot in life, we’d still be picking berries, digging up roots and beetle grubs. Maybe we’d have been better off. Bit late now.
Remember, the general belief was not that you either ascended to heaven or had no afterlife at all. The ascension was not an alternative to utter oblivion, but to the drab joyless afterlife that most people believed in. All the way back to the Sumerians at least. The Egyptians thought you could take it with you–a good afterlife for those who could afford it. The Greeks toyed with the idea that you could live a better or worse existence based on your achievements in life, your moral character (as they defined morality), but as Bart says, there was still a prevailing idea that most people had very colorless afterlives, a mere shadow of what came before. And of course there were various beliefs in reincarnation, which wasn’t necessarily seen as a reward or a punishment–the reward, for Buddhists, was to achieve total non-existence, since life is a prison from which we must escape.
But there were ideas of the afterlife before civilization came into being. I think ascension to heaven was not about conquering mortality so much as mediocrity. Reaching for something higher.
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.
In all accounts of Jesus’ ascension from the NT (Mark 16:19 [considered an interpolation after the original text]; Luke 24: 50-52 and Acts 1: 9), — although they are different—the same expression is repeated: “he was taken up “. In both Mark and Luke, “into heaven” is added.
I have no doubt that this fact never happened. But to the believers, I would like to ask two things:
1.- Who performed the “taken [of Jesus] up” action? God the father? Some angels? And why did they have to help him in his ascension to heaven? Couldn’t Jesus do it, being God, by himself? Shocking.
2 .- It is clear that those who wrote these stories believed that the heaven was in a specific place above the earth (the sky), say, in the vertical of the place where the ascension took place (Mount of Olives) or very close.
This idea that heaven is somewhere above the earth [flat, they all believed], is the same as expressed by Paul (2 Corinthias 12:2) when he writes: “[…] a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caughtup to the third heaven. […] And I know that this man […] was caught up to paradise “
This same idea of a ascent through the visible sky to reach heaven (or paradise), is clearly stated in the Nicene Creed “He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven” ((Here you can understand that Jesus ascended by himself, without needing anyone to help him in his ascension)
To be such a transcendent fact for the Christian faith, I think it is misrepresented, lack precision and concordance between the narratives, and shows a very childish and simplistic idea of where heaven is: anywhere, in the “heights” above from the earth.
You know, your posts tend to be a bit childish and simplistic themselves. So I guess that means you’re an expert. But not at all in Bertrand Russell’s league–
“If the Germans succeed in sending an invading army to England we should do best to treat them as visitors, give them quarters and invite the commander and chief to dine with the prime minister,” Russell wrote to British critic Godfrey Carter. “Such behavior would completely baffle them.”
So let us concede that childish simplistic ideas have thrived in the total absence of religious faith.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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