His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship, one that shall not be destroyed” (Dn 7.14). The prophet’s vision is celestial, the disciples’ vision is earthly, but both Daniel and Luke are describing the same exaltation of the Son of Man (and that’s the point!)- “ Dominion, glory, and kingship were given to him all peoples and nations of every language must serve him. In Luke’s narrative, the disciples’ gazing at the sky confirms the ascension but the ascension itself is already a literary device that alludes to Daniel 7.13-14- there, Daniel was standing in the celestial throne room and saw the Son of Man being brought up in the clouds here, the disciples are standing on earth seeing the Son of Man going up in the clouds. “But it can’t be just an idea, right? Because Luke mentions the disciples actually gazing up into the sky!” Well, as I said, historicism is not our friend. The story of Jesus’ Ascension into heaven is found only in Luke/Acts, so we need to read it as part of Luke’s theology, not as a scientific description of something that would have been accessible to anyone with proper equipment. But it’s still wrong to try to harmonize- “Well, Matthew left that part out Luke only completed the story!” No, we need to appreciate the profoundly literary and theological nature of our Texts. “Contradictions!!- untrustworthy!! lies!! they made it up!!”)- But of course, setting the gospels at odds with each other in this way is foolish they tell different stories simply because they’re making different but interlocking theological points. (Some other time I’ll talk about why that’s the case.) It would be also be wrong to say (as I’ve read elsewhere) that Matthew, for his part, denies Jesus’ “ascension” when he has the disciples go to the mountain in Galilee that Jesus had specified, where Jesus meets and commissions them, saying only, “Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the end of the age” (Mt 28.20)- showing that he’s not going anywhere! (“Aha!”, shout the critics.

Mark has no Ascension story, because his theological narrative doesn’t need one. We absolutely need to stop trying to read first-century, Iron-Age documents with Cyber-Age, scientific eyes! I responded that the only way for us in the 21st century to understand it, is obviously the way its audience was meant to understand it in the 1st century.

Someone in one of the Facebook groups I participate in recently asked how we’re to understand Luke’s story of Jesus’ ascension, since trying to calculate his present location at a certain (assumed) rate of ascent obviously leads to absurdity. Scientific (historical) questions about Scripture episodes can lead to inconsequential answers at best, and completely wrong and misleading ones at worst- not because science is bad, but because it filters the object under discussion through the wrong categories.

johnbburnett on Why is there no Ascension in Mark?.What does the Gospel of Mark sound like in the Original Greek? 20 01 03.A Quick Gospel Guide (and Icon!) (infographic) 20 02 19.

The Shape of Mark’s Passion Narrative- and Why It’s Important 23 07 05.

Ascension definition bible