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The Chronology of the Ascension Stories in Luke and Acts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2013

Henk Jan de Jonge
Henk Jan de Jonge*
Affiliation:
University of Leiden, Faculty of Humanities, Institute for Religious Studies, P.B. 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. email: [email protected].
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Abstract

In both his Gospel and Acts, Luke places the ascension at the end of the day of Jesus' resurrection. There is no difference between Luke's dating of the ascension in his Gospel and that in Acts. The forty days mentioned in Acts 1.3 are viewed by Luke as subsequent to the ascension, not as previous to it. The forty days are not the term fixed for the ascension; they are not linked with the ascension at all. They are linked with the post-Easter, post-ascension appearances. The ascension ought to be regarded as preceding the forty days of Jesus' appearances rather than following them.

Keywords

ascensionresurrection of Christappearancesforty daysprologue of Acts
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 151 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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Footnotes

*

Presidential address delivered at the 67th General Meeting of the Society for New Testament Studies held in Leuven, 31 July–4 August 2012. I wish to thank Professor M. de Jonge (Leiden), Dr M. H. de Lang (Leiden) and Dr G. R. McDonald (Leuven) for their helpful comments on a prior draft of this paper.

References

1 See www.bank/holidays.com/selectday. Countries where Ascension Day is not a public holiday include Australia, Canada, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, the UK, and the USA.

2 In Italy Ascension Day was abolished as a public holiday in 1977; but from 2008 several bills have been put forward in Parliament and in the Senate for its restoration. See http://parlamento.openpolis.it/atto/documento/id/1800 and http://parlamento.openpolis.it/atto/documento/id/3493.

3 In this paper, ‘Luke’ designates the common author of Luke–Acts.

4 Barrett, C. K., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, vol. 1 (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994)Google Scholar 68, 70, 86; Becker, Jürgen, Die Auferstehung Jesu Christi nach dem Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007) 46–7Google Scholar; Bovon, François, L'Évangile selon Saint Luc 4 (Commentaire du Nouveau Testament IIId; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2009) 491–2Google Scholar; Dunn, James, The Acts of the Apostles (Epworth Commentaries; Epworth: Peterborough, 1996) 3–4Google Scholar, 12; Dunn, ‘The Ascension of Jesus: A Test Case for Hermeneutics’, Auferstehung—Resurrection (ed. Avemarie, Fr. and Lichtenberger, H.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001) 301–22Google Scholar, esp. 304–7; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., ‘The Ascension of Christ and Pentecost’, TS 45 (1984) 409–40 esp. 418: ‘some time after “forty days” had elapsed’; Lohfink, G., Die Himmelfahrt Jesu (Munich: Kösel, 1971) 176–86Google Scholar; Marguerat, Daniel, Les Actes des Apôtres (1–12) (Commentaire du Nouveau Testament Va; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2007) 38Google Scholar; Parsons, M. C. and Pervo, R. I., Rethinking the Unity of Luke and Acts (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 60Google Scholar; Pervo, R. I., Acts: A Commentary (ed. Attridge, H. W.; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009) 34, 45Google Scholar.

5 E.g., Wolter, M., Das Lukasevangelium (HNT 5; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 794Google Scholar; Klein, H., Das Lukasevangelium (KEK 1/3; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006) 742Google Scholar. Bovon, F., ‘The Lukan Ascension Stories’, Korean New Testament Studies 17 (2010) 563–95Google Scholar, esp. 577: ‘[in Luke 24.50–52], the reader has the impression that we are still on the day of Easter’. I thank Professor Bovon for sending me a copy of his article.

6 Mainville, Odette, L'Esprit dans l'oeuvre de Luc (Héritage et projet 45; Montréal: Fides, 1991)Google Scholar 121: ‘résulte d'une approche trop littérale du texte’; Fitzmyer, Joseph A., The Gospel according to Luke, X–XXIV (AB 28A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985) 1586Google Scholar.

7 Fitzmyer, Luke, 1588.

8 Bovon, L'Évangile, 481–2, has noticed this problem. He tries to overcome it by remarking: ‘La succession grammaticale [of ἀνελήμφθη in v. 2 and παρέστησεν ἑαυτόν in v. 3] n'implique pas nécessairement une succession chronologique’.

9 Epp, E. J., ‘The Ascension in the Textual Tradition of Luke–Acts’, New Testament Textual Criticism (FS Bruce M. Metzger; ed. Epp, E. J. and Fee, G. D.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1981) 131–45Google Scholar; Metzger, B. M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart/New York: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/UBS, 2d ed. 1994) 162–6Google Scholar; Zwiep, A. W., ‘The Text of the Ascension Narratives (Luke 24.50–3; Acts 1.1–2, 9–11)’, NTS 42 (1996) 219–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a defence of the shorter text, see Ehrman, Bart D., The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (Oxford/New York: Oxford University, 1993) 227–32Google Scholar. Ehrman regards the longer text as due to an anti-docetic tendency.

10 Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum (ed. Weihrich, F.; CSEL 43; Vienna: Tempsky, 1904)Google Scholar 3.25.83.

11 Venerabilis, Beda, In Lucae evangelium expositio (ed. Hurst, D.; CCSL 120; Turnhout: Brepols, 1960)Google Scholar at Luke 24.50 (PL 92, 633A-B). Bede is quoted by Aquinas, Thomas, Catena Aurea (ed. Senensis, Antonius; Paris: Moreau, 1637)Google Scholar 1213C-D at Luke 24.50.

12 According to Grotius, Hugo, Annotationes in Novum Testamentum (1641; 9 vols.; Groningen: Zuidema, 1826–34; 3, 1827)Google Scholar 514, at Luke 14.49, the forty days were the time during which, on different occasions, Jesus spoke the words transmitted in Luke 24.44–49. Johannes Clericus stuck to Augustine's model; in his Greek synopsis of the Gospels, Harmonia evangelica (Amsterdam: Huguetani, 1700)Google Scholar 502, he simply interrupts his column of Luke 24 after v. 49 to insert here Acts 1.3–8; then he continues with Luke 24.50–51 and Acts 1.9–11. According to Bengel, Gnomon (Tübingen: Fues, 3d ed. 1835), 349, at Luke 24.44, the forty days fell between Luke 24.43 and 44: Jesus' last words to the eleven recorded in Luke 24.44–9 were spoken ‘on the very day of the ascension’. The only reason why Reimarus did not make a fuss about the chronological inconsistency between the Lukan accounts of the ascension is that he, too, was completely accustomed to the harmonization of the passages at issue. Bach's, J. S.Himmelfahrts Oratorium (Leipzig 1735; BWV 11)Google Scholar omits Acts 1.3; strictly speaking, it thus leaves undecided on which day the ascension took place; but it certainly places it silently on the fortieth day after Easter, for the oratorio was performed for the first time on Ascension Day 1735. The ascension story, narrated in four recitatives, is harmonized here in an interesting mixture from Luke 24.50–51 (movement 2); Acts 1.9 and Mark 16.19 (movement 5); Acts 1.10–11 (movement 7); and Luke 24.52, Acts 1.12 and again Luke 24.52 (movement 9).

13 E.g., Plummer, A., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to S. Luke (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 5th ed. 1922)Google Scholar 564: either between vv. 43 and 44 or between vv. 49 and 50; Larrañaga, V., L'Ascension de Notre-Seigneur dans le Nouveau Testament (Rome: Institut Biblique Pontifical, 1938) 632–3Google Scholar: in v. 44; Klostermann, E., Das Lukasevangelium (HNT; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 3d ed. 1975)Google Scholar 239: between vv. 49 and 50; Moule, C. F. D., ‘The Ascension: Acts 1,9’, Expository Times 68 (1956–7) 205–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, still accepts the historicity of the forty days and proposes to intercalate them between vv. 46 and 47; Zwiep, A. W., The Ascension of the Messiah in Lukan Christology (NTS 87; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 91–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar, also wants to read the forty days into Luke 24.36–53, although with due reservation and without indicating a precise breaking-point in the story line of Luke 24. For a survey of earlier attempts to insert the forty days into Luke 24, see Larrañaga, L'Ascension, 444.

14 Lake, K., The Beginnings of Christianity, vol. 5 (ed. Lake, K. and Cadbury, H. J.; London: Macmillan, 1933) 3–4Google Scholar; Sahlin, H., Der Messias und das Gottesvolk (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1945) 1–62Google Scholar, esp. 11–18; Ph. Menoud, H., ‘Remarques sur les textes de l'ascension dans Luc–Actes’, Neutestamentliche Studien für R. Bultmann (ed. Eltester, W.; BZNW 21; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1954, 2d ed. 1957) 148–56Google Scholar. Later Menoud changed his mind; see n. 16 below.

15 Trocmé, E., Le ‘Livre des Actes’ et l'histoire (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1957) 31–3Google Scholar; Conzelmann, H., Die Mitte der Zeit. Studien zur Theologie des Lukas (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1954; 6th ed., 1977)Google Scholar 86; Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte (HNT 7; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1963)Google Scholar, 21. Similarly, Fitzmyer, J. A., ‘The Ascension of Christ and Pentecost’, TS 45 (1984) 409–40Google Scholar, esp. 419, where Fitzmyer argues that it is attractive to assume that originally Luke 24.49 led directly on to Acts 1.3 (without the mention of the forty days) and that the end of Luke 24 and the beginning of Acts 1, including the forty days, were interpolated when Luke's work was split into two volumes. Remarks to this effect do not recur in Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke X–XXIV (1985) 1586–9.

16 Davies, J. G., He Ascended into Heaven: A Study in the History of Doctrine (London: Lutterworth, 1958)Google Scholar 53. Ph. Menoud, H., ‘“Pendant quarante jours” (Actes i 3)’, Neotestamentica et patristica (FS O. Cullmann; ed. van Unnik, W. C.; NTS 6; Leiden: Brill, 1962) 148–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Plummer, Luke, 564; Knopf, R., ‘Die Apostelgeschichte’, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments (ed. Weiss, J.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1906)Google Scholar, 8; Moule, ‘The Ascension’, 205–9; Benoit, P., ‘L'Ascension’, Exégèse et théologie (ed. Benoit, P.; Paris: Cerf, 1961) 363–411Google Scholar.

18 Wilson, S. G., ‘The Ascension: A Critique and an Interpretation’, ZNW 59 (1968) 269–81Google Scholar, esp. 271 n. 13.

19 Betz, O., ‘Entrückung. II. Biblische und frühjüdische Zeit’, TRE 9 (1982) 683–90Google Scholar; Goulder, M. D., Luke: A New Paradigm (JSNTSup 20; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989)Google Scholar 790, 798.

20 Trocmé, Livre des Actes, 33; Ellis, E. E., The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1966)Google Scholar 280.

21 Wolter, Michael, ‘Die Proömien des lukanischen Doppelwerks (Lk 1,1–4 und Apg 1,1–2)’, Die Apostelgeschichte im Kontext antiker und frühchristlicher Historiographie (ed. Frey, J., Rothschild, C. K., and Schröter, J.; BZNW 162; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2009) 476–94Google Scholar, esp. 492–3.

22 Wilson, ‘Ascension’, 277; Maile, ‘The Ascension in Luke–Acts’, TynB 37 (1986) 30–59Google Scholar, esp. 48–54; van Unnik, W. C., ‘Eléments artistiques dans l'Evangile de Luc’, L'Evangile de Luc. The Gospel of Luke (ed. Neirynck, F.; BETL 32; Leuven: University/Peeters, 2d ed. 1989) 39–50Google Scholar, esp. 42; Parsons and Pervo, Unity, 60; Dunn, ‘Ascension’, 305–7; Dunn, Acts, 12–13.

23 Bovon, ‘Lukan Ascension Stories’, 587–8.

24 Sleeman, M., Geography and the Ascension Narrative in Acts (SNTSMS 146; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar 66: ‘The differences between the Luke 24 and Acts 1 ascension accounts are best ascribed to their particular narrative positions’, with references to Larkin, Giles, and Zwiep.

25 There is no indication of any lapse of time between Acts 1.8 and 1.9.

26 This is the reason why a number of textual witnesses omit εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν in v. 11. However, the shorter text is evidently the lectio facilior.

27 Walton, S., ‘Where Does the Beginning of Acts End?’, The Unity of Luke–Acts (ed. Verheyden, J.; BETL 142; Leuven: University/Peeters 1999) 447–67Google Scholar.

28 Barrett, Acts, 1.61–2 designates Acts 1.1–14 as the ‘Introduction to the second volume’; Walton, ‘Beginning of Acts’, 449, mentions several other authors who take Acts 1.1–14 as the ‘preface’ of Acts: A. Q. Morton—G. H. C. MacGregor, B. Witherington, and G. Lüdemann. Marguerat, Actes, 21, too, calls Acts 1.1–14 the ‘prologue’. Pervo, Acts, 34: ‘Genuinely new material begins in v. 15. It is therefore preferable to regard all of Acts 1:1–14 as the prologue.’

29 See Acts 2.32; 3.15; 4.33; 5.31–32; 10.41; and 13.30–31. Dunn, ‘Ascension’, 305–7, argues convincingly that Luke restricts the ‘apostle-making appearances’ to forty days in order to limit the number of authorized and legitimate apostles over against other claimants to the memory and traditions of Jesus.

30 Bovon, ‘Lukan Ascension Stories’, 571.

31 E.g., Haenchen, Apostelgeschichte, 110; Zwiep, Ascension, 99–100; Die Bibel in heutigem Deutsch: ‘Als Jesus wieder einmal bei ihnen war’. By contrast, Augustine Contra Felicem Manichaeum I.4 (ed. Zycha, Iosephus; CSEL 25; Vienna/Prague/Leipzig: Tempsky & Freytag, 1891)Google Scholar 804 gives a translation of Acts 1.1–11 in which v. 4 is syntactically connected with vv. 1–2 in such a way as to make the conversation and events of vv. 4–11 take place on Easter Sunday evening: ‘Et recitavit ex Actibus Apostolorum: Primum quidem sermonem feci de omnibus, o Theophile, quae coepit Iesus facere et docere,…et quomodo conversatus est cum illis’.

32 Menoud, ‘“Pendant quarante jours”’, 152; Boismard, M. É. and Lamouille, A., Les Actes de deux Apôtres (ÉtB Ns 13; Paris: Lecoffre/Gabalda, 1990)Google Scholar 17; Mainville, O., ‘De Jésus à l’Église. Étude rédactionnelle de Luc 24’, NTS 51 (2005) 192–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 209 n. 54: ‘[L]a mention des quarante jours fait référence au temps d'apparition du Ressuscité, ne présumant en rien du moment de son ascension’.

33 Note that in Acts 10.41, Luke also says that these things happened when ‘we ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead’; that is, after the resurrection, not after the ascension.

34 Συνᾰλιζόμενος, with a short alpha, must mean ‘eating together with (them)’, ‘during a common meal’. The authors who attest the word and the meaning include Manetho (astrologer, second or third century c.e.), Apotelesmatica 5.339; Ps.-Clem. Hom. 13.4; and Origen Hexapla, Ps. 140 (141).4. The meaning is confirmed or at least assumed by the Vulgate, ‘convescens’, other ancient versions, the parallel passage Acts 10.41 (not to mention here Luke 24.43), and a number of Greek patristic authors, e.g., Chrysostom In principium Actuum Apostolorum 4 (PG 51.104) and Theophylact Expositio in Acta Apostolorum 1.4 (PG 125.505–8). The meaning ‘coming together’, from συνᾱλιζόμενος, with a long alpha, is impossible here, for it would require a nominative plural. See Larrañaga, L'Ascension, 381–91; Barrett, Acts, 71–2; Zwiep, Ascension, 100–101.

35 The character of Acts 1.3 as a flash forward and as sort of an interruption within vv. 1–11, was seen correctly by Bacon, B. W., ‘The Ascension in Luke and Acts’, Exp. (Series 7) 7 (1909) 254–61Google Scholar. However, Bacon designates v. 3 somewhat unfortunately as an ‘interjected verse’, 261, and as ‘interjected parenthetically’, 260. This may have made his readers hesitant about his (in my view correct) interpretation of Acts 1.1–11. But there was no reason why Lohfink, Himmelfahrt, 112 n. 115, should have repudiated Bacon's interpretation slightingly as a ‘völlig abwegige Lösung’. Bacon's view of the chronology of Acts 1, including the designation of 1.3 as ‘parenthesis’, was endorsed by Wilder, Amos N., ‘Variant Traditions of the Resurrection in Acts’, JBL 62 (1943) 307–18Google Scholar. Recently, Acts 1.3 was called ‘a parenthesis’ again by Pervo, Acts, 34.

36 Luke has John imprisoned before Jesus' baptism because he wanted to keep the time of John the Baptist, the precursor, clearly distinct from the time of Jesus; see Wolter, Lukasevangelium, 169.

37 Barrett, Acts, 563.

38 In this case based on Mark 3.19.

39 The additions are the reference to John the Baptist who baptized only with water (v. 5) and the discussion about the time when the kingdom of Israel would be restored (vv. 6–7). But in Luke's Gospel the latter issue is touched upon in the story about the disciples from Emmaus, also on the day of Jesus' resurrection, Luke 24.21. In Acts 1.13, for theological reasons, Luke also adds the list of apostles, together with a number of women, Jesus' mother, and brothers. These persons will be the eyewitnesses (to Jesus) whose testimony will be the basis and the criterion of the truth in the history of the Church which now commences.

40 Verse 12. For the length of a sabbath day's journey, about 1120 metres, see Barrett, Acts, 85–6. From the mention of the sabbath day's journey in v. 12, Chrysostom draws the conclusion that the ascension took place on a Saturday; see Catena in Acta SS. Apostolorum e Cod. Nov. Coll. 3 (ed. Cramer, J. A.; Oxford: Oxford University, 1938)Google Scholar 10; this is an excerpt from Chrysostom ActHom 3.1 (PG 60.33). The comment indicates that Chrysostom dated the ascension here sometime between the resurrection and the end of the appearances on the fortieth day. For more recent authors who place the ascension on a sabbath, see Zwiep, Ascension, 108.

41 Haenchen, Apostelgeschichte, 116: ‘Fugenlos geht die Erzählung weiter’; Zwiep, Ascension, 103: ‘Without interruption the narrative passes into the description of the ascension’. Conzelmann, Apostelgeschichte, 23, rightly observes that vv. 9–11 ‘keine zeitliche Distanz vom Ostertag voraussetzt’, but ascribes this chronology to the tradition which he thinks underlies vv. 9–11, whereas, as we have argued, it is that of Acts 1.9–11 itself, on the redactional level.

42 Acts 1.1–3 is recognized as a separate unit, inter alios, by Larrañaga, L'Ascension, 274.

43 The only concrete event Luke places in these fifty days is the appointment of Matthias as Judas' substitute. Luke does put a number of appearances of Jesus in this period (v. 3), but does not narrate any of these.

44 Mainville, L'Esprit, 129; Mainville, ‘De Jésus à l’Église', 209 n. 57. Zwiep, Ascension, 98: ‘Stricto sensu, the notion of the forty days does not fix the date of the ascension’.

45 In Mark 16.19, ἀνελήμφθη takes up ἀνελήμφθη in Acts 1.2 and ἀναλημφθείς in Acts 1.11. The ascension is not dated explicitly to a specific day, but vv. 12–18 describe the resurrection day and v. 19 rounds off the events of the same day. Justin Apologia I, 50 echoes Acts 1.1–11. Justin mentions Jesus' resurrection, appearance to the eleven, teaching from the prophets, visible ascent to heaven, and then the outpouring of the Spirit, but not the appearances during forty days, nor an ascension at the end of the forty days. Irenaeus Adv. haer. II.32.3: ‘Dominus surrexit a mortuis in tertia die et discipulis se manifestavit et videntibus eis receptus est in coelum’; ‘videntibus eis’ clearly refers to Acts 1.9 βλεπόντων αὐτῶν. Oracula Sib. Tiburtinae (c. 1000?), Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen (ed. Sackur, E.; Halle: Niemeyer, 1898)Google Scholar: ‘tertia die resurget et ostendet se discipulis et videntibus illis ascendet in celum’.

46 Tertullian Apologeticum 21.23: ‘Cum discipulis ad quadraginta dies egit…Dehinc…circumfusa nube in caelum est ereptus’; Cyprian Quod idola dii non sint 14: ‘Et die tertio rursus a mortuis sponte surrexit. Apparuit discipulis suis…, et substantiae corporalis firmitate conspicuus ad dies quadraginta remoratus est’; Lactantius De mortibus persecutorum 2.23: ‘diebus quadraginta cum his commoratus, aperuit corda eorum;…eum procella nubis…rapuit in coelum’; Chrysostom In principium Actuum Apostolorum 4 (PG 51.104): ‘After his resurrection, Christ did not ascend immediately to heaven, but he conversed with the disciples; and not only did he converse with them, but he also ate together with them, shared their table and taught them; and after forty days he ascended to the Father in heaven’. Augustine De catechizandis rudibus 3.41.1: ‘conversatus cum eis quadraginta diebus, eisdem spectantibus ascendit in coelum’.

47 Berger, K., Die Auferstehung des Propheten und die Erhöhung des Menschensohnes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976) 170–4Google Scholar, 471–3 n. 147.

48 Fitzmyer, Luke, 1566. Zwiep, Ascension, 152, on Luke 24.26: ‘[F]or Luke, Jesus’ resurrection is… connected with his “entrance into glory” as an already accomplished event. That is, at the resurrection Jesus entered into a new mode of existence'. For ‘a new mode of existence’ Luke would rather say ‘heaven’.

49 Wolter, Lukasevangelium, 795, rightly: ‘Von dorther [i.e., from heaven, where Jesus has been since his resurrection] lässt Lukas Jesus vorübergehend noch einmal auf die Erde herabkommen, um sowohl den Emmaüsjüngern…als auch allen anderen Jüngern…zu erscheinen’.

50 Fitzmyer, Luke, 1587; Fitzmyer, ‘The Ascension of Christ and Pentecost’, TS 45 (1984) 409–40Google Scholar, esp. 420–1.

51 Berger, Auferstehung, 170–1, contra Lohfink and Zwiep (see n. 55 below).

52 Lohfink, Himmelfahrt, 274: ‘Die Konsequenz…scheint unausweichlich: Offensichtlich befand sich Jesus—dem Verständnis des Lukas zufolge—während der vierzig Tage nach Ostern noch nicht im Himmel, sondern in einer Art Zwischenzustand, in dem er zwar verklärt, aber noch nicht erhöht war… Die Frage, wo sich Jesus in dieser Zwischenzeit eigentlich befand, wird von Lukas weder gestellt noch beantwortet.’ This is not correct: Jesus is ‘in Paradise’ (Luke 23.43) and ‘at the right hand of God’ (22.69), that is, in heaven.

53 Larrañaga, L'Ascension, 442: the forty days ‘marquent une phase, la dernière, de la vie de Jésus sur terre; tout ce qui suit l'ascension appartient à sa vie céleste’. Zwiep, Ascension, 133: ‘he withdrew himself again to some hidden place on earth’.

54 Wolter, Lukasevangelium, 783: ‘Damit wird deutlich, dass Jesus nach lk Verständnis bereits in seine δόξα eingegangen ist’. Translations that try to render v. 26 as if, from the viewpoint of the Emmaus disciples, Jesus' glorification was still something in the future, are misleading and exegetically mistaken. See, e.g.: ‘Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ (NRSV), and ‘…suffer in this way before entering upon his glory’ (REB; my italics). Zwiep, Ascension, 152–153, rightly concludes his discussion of Luke 24.26 by stating that ‘on the Emmaus road Jesus appears as having already entered into his glory, i.e., he appears “from heaven”’. All appearances of martyrs take place from heaven, e.g., those of Onias and Jeremiah in 2 Macc 15.12–16, alluded to in 2.21: ‘the appearances that came from heaven’ (my italics).

55 Zwiep, Ascension, 165. Berger, Auferstehung, 473, argues convincingly that ‘Irdische Existenz nach der Auferstehung ist ausgeschlossen’. Cf. 472: ‘Als Auferstandener hat Jesus prinzipiell himmlische Seinsweise erhalten’, and 497: ‘alle Erscheinungen des Auferstandenen geschehen “vom Himmel” her, d.h. sind mit einem irdischen Dasein unvergleichbar [sic; unvereinbar?]’. Yet Berger, 131, seems still to suppose an interval of forty days between the resurrection and the ascension. Zwiep too sticks to the view that according to Acts 1.1–11 the ascension took place on the fortieth day. In the latter case, this is the effect of the author's insistence (inspired by Lohfink) that the ascension in Acts 1.9–11 is a rapture (‘Entrückung’) story. This view is due to an overvaluation of some formal characteristics of the accounts of the ascension and to an underestimation of the content of these stories, and the function and intention they have in their context. But if Jesus' resurrection is his definitive exaltation, as Zwiep agrees, the so-called ascension story cannot be a rapture story: it must be the conclusion of the third appearance story.

56 Pace J. Becker, Auferstehung, 47: ‘Die von Mk vorgegebene Einheit von Auferstehung und Erhöhing ist aufgehoben’. However, to Luke too Jesus' resurrection and exaltation are one process, whereas the ascension does not take place until after an appearance from heaven. Exaltation and ascension are different events, separated by a long day.

57 This tradition is also reflected in Acts 2.32–33 and 5.31, and in a way also in Rev 12.5. Furthermore in Barnabas 15.9; Ev. Petri 38–42; 56; Aristides Apologia 15.2; Melito Peri pascha 765–6; 807–10; Justin Dial. 17.1; 36.5; Test. Benj. 9.5; Irenaeus Adv. haer. 5.31.2; Tertullian Adv. Iudaeos 13.23; see also Lohfink, Himmelfahrt, 98–109. Besides this tradition about Jesus' exaltation at the moment of his being raised by God, there is the tradition according to which Jesus was already taken up to heaven from the cross; Luke 23.43; 24.26; Phil 2.9; Ev. Petri 19; Justin Dial. 38.1.

58 2 Macc 7.9, 11, 14, 23, 29, 36; Wis 3.1–9; 4.7–10, 14, 17; 5.5, 15–16; Assumptio Mosis 10.2 (if ‘qui est in summo constitutus’ is Taxo, as argued by Tromp, J., The Assumption of Moses [SVTP 10: Leiden: Brill 1993] 230)Google Scholar. de Jonge, M., ‘Jesus’ Death for Others and the Death of the Maccabean Martyrs', Jewish Eschatology, Early Christian Christology and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (NTS 63; Leiden: Brill, 1991) 125–34Google Scholar, esp. 130–4; Holleman, J., Resurrection and Parousia (NTS 84; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 144–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 162–3. Wolter, Lukasevangelium, 795: ‘ganz offensichtlich…von der Auferstehung und Erhöhung von Märtyrern in den Himmel’.

59 E.g., Dunn, Acts, 3–4.

60 One might ask why Luke deemed only this appearance worthy of a conclusion by an ascension. One answer might be that Luke wanted to wind up his account of the resurrection day and his whole Gospel with a clear statement as to Jesus' whereabouts since his resurrection: he is in heaven; eyewitnesses have seen him go there. In Acts, Luke repeats this statement in the form of the ascension story, adding the appearances during the forty days after Easter but without concluding any of them again with an ascension. Obviously, the one ascension story of Luke 24.50–52 and Acts 1.9–11 sufficed to make it clear where Jesus is since his resurrection, namely, in heaven; it sufficed also to make the apostles well instructed witnesses of Jesus' renewed life.

61 E.g., Lohfink, Himmelfahrt, 240; Fitzmyer, ‘The Ascension’, 420–1; Bovon, ‘Lukan Ascension Stories’, 586–7.

62 Cf. Luke 21.27, 36; Acts 10.42–43; 17.31.

63 Moreover, the two ascension stories in Luke–Acts are primarily farewell scenes rather than stories about Jesus being taken up in glory. Apart from the mention of the fact that ‘they worshipped him’, Luke 24.52, Jesus' glory plays no role in these stories.