Where did Christ go?

[marco]

In Acts 1 we have:

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel.

Which also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.


The above raises a few questions.

Does the location of heaven in the sky suggest the story is mere fabrication?
In what possible way could Jesus physically vanish above the clouds?
Is the appearance of "two men" in white simply a "deus ex machina" device to explain what happened - at least partially?
Would listeners reasonably suppose that the return of Jesus is more than 2000 years away?
A reasonable person would dismiss all this as nonsense. But why, then, has it been accepted for centuries?

[JehovahsWitness]

When witnesses see Jesus ascending through the air to heaven it is logical to assume they THINK heaven is up in the sky. That was an understandable belief THEN; it is now seen to be false.

It may be "seen to be false" but how would anyone but God know if it is. For all we know you get to heaven by going up from any location and zapped through a portal that only exists when God says it does. In short what ever the "thought" is how can "up" be considered false when it cannot be proven where heaven is in relation to any location on the planet? Nobody knows what part if any "up" plays in getting to heaven.

Further, if we are to presume God exists (which I presume we are for the purpose of argument we are) then "up" is as good a direction as any other. Heaven being an entirely different realm, a spiritual one, a notion the disciples would be familiar with from the Hebrew bible and Jesus' teaching. So since Jesus chose to let them see him "depart" for heaven, up is as good a direction as any other, in fact, it was the best choice he could have made.

Think about it, do you think if they were to see Jesus depart by burrowing deeper and deeper into the ground until he disappeared under their feet do you think that would have been more "helpful" to them? Or by the same argument, saw him part to the left or right, what do you think they would have done? Logically they'd have done what they'd been doing for a good part of three and a half years... they'd have followed him.

What about just disappearing instantly before their very eyes? He'd been doing that for over a month, only to RE-appear on another occassion. How helpful would it have been for them to live in constant expectation that he hadn't really "left for good" and would reappear to continue the conversation?

So unless you want to invent another dimension to provide more fodder for your criticism, staying on ground level and simply moving away from them in any one direction, burrowing into the ground or instantly disappearing are evidently not the best options to convey the message Jesus wanted to communication: that he was going away, for a very very long time, that he would always be watching over them (looking out for their interests and protecting them) and that, no they couldn't come with him for the time being.

Heaven in scripture has long been depicted figuratively as "up"; God is spoken of as being above the earth, to convey the notion of his superiority in position, power and wisdom. This is because physically being at a higher level allows one to see further and see more than staying on ground level. "Up" is even today used idiomatically to refer to superiority, a greater degree of authority, an exclusive position (the top of ones game, climbing the corporate ladder, smashing the glass ceiling...).

So far from being a bad choice, the dramatic nature of his ascension, the association it would have communicated and the physical impossibility it imposed for the disciples who loved him dearly to literally follow him, made this exit the perfect one.

JW

[marco]

Hence the parable; "a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles." The requirement that it apply beyond the point being made is a common error of the scientific humanist.

That's all very well but I was interpreting a metaphor rather than a parable.

Hence the instruction, “(W)hy do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.� They were telling them to get back to work. If the boss leaves and says he will be coming back, he is not necessarily going to say when, because he wants you to get to work, not stand around until just before he comes back, note the parables of the bridesmaids, the landlord, etc.

You do a wonderful job writing my replies. This is exactly so - "Get back to work; the boss has gone." But of course nobody in creation would expect the boss to be away for thousands of years. That was my point.

[rikuoamero]

There seems to be quite a limited repertoire of atheist and other skeptic arguments here, Marco – that of “This belief requires the supernatural, which cannot be proved; therefore, belief in these things is silly and on par with belief in fairies or unicorns.�

In the beginning heaven was a solid barrier that divided the waters below from the waters above, and which contained the sun and moon and planets and stars. Copernicus postulated that the sun was the center of the universe, and the Earth and other planets revolved around it. Galileo confirmed this by seeing the gibbous phase of Venus, which could only occur if Earth and Venus were on opposite sides of the sun. Catholic clergymen refused to even look in the eyepiece. Voyager II is now 15 light-hours from Earth and has not encountered heaven. The current thinking is that heaven is in another dimension, or p-brane, or somesuch. Always somewhere where science can't quite reach it. Heaven is in constant retreat.

There's a term for this, isn't there? Something about goalposts...

[marco]

It may be "seen to be false" but how would anyone but God know if it is. For all we know you get to heaven by going up from any location and zapped through a portal that only exists when God says it does... ........

Think about it, do you think if they were to see Jesus depart by burrowing deeper and deeper into the ground until he disappeared under their feet .............

What about just disappearing instantly before their very eyes? He'd been doing that for over a month, only to RE-appear on another occasion..........

So unless you want to invent another dimension to provide more fodder for your criticism ..........

Heaven in scripture has long been depicted figuratively as "up"; God is spoken of as being above the earth, to convey the notion of his superiority in position, power and wisdom....................


So far from being a bad choice, the dramatic nature of his ascension, the association it would have communicated and the physical impossibility it imposed for the disciples who loved him dearly to literally follow him, made this exit the perfect one.

I enjoyed this thoughtful post that deals with the situation perfectly and explains your point of view in a clever, meaningful way. I did think about it, as you suggested, and the Ascension does take on a lovely meaning under your explanations.

Commenting adversely seems almost like schoolboy insurrection but my position is that you endow the occasion with your own intelligence and apply an underlying text - however beautiful -that was missing in the original. If indeed the theatricality and ingenuity of physical ascension were addressed to the awe of the disciples then that is impressive. If the sky were chosen as a metaphorically uplifting place for heaven's location, well and good.

But pagans through the ages, before and after the Ascension, also thought heaven was in the sky, through understandable lack of scientific knowledge. So it would seem you are making a virtue out of a vice.

And when you say that the apostles had often seen Christ appearing and vanishing, you have a powerful initial condition denied to me, since I cannot possibly accept this is reasonable. You have made good use of your starting premise (which isn't mine) that "with God all things are possible."

I remain a spectator on a primitive play, on a man made to be what he never was, on an event whose mystery is entirely in the composition of its narrators. Go well.

[JLB32168]

Not the point being made, JLB. The discussion was about the portrayal of heaven as accessible through the clouds. Since common belief at the time placed heaven in the sky, it would seem that the writers were without their Spiritual Guide.

How does that change anything I’ve said, namely, that the ancient Greek Christians held that there were three heavens?

Here are several options. #1 - Christ went up into the sky because the Jews thought that heaven was up and he was accommodating their belief. #2 – Christ ascending up would evince to any skeptics or people shaky in their faith that He wasn’t some regular Joe Blow. #3 – Christ had to go somewhere so He chose up; He could just as easily have done a sidestep into some ethereal plain of existence. #4 – Ascending up would maximize witnesses since . . . well . . . everyone sees a balloon in the sky.

The point simply doesn’t have the import that atheists and other skeptics say it does.

[JLB32168]

I have shown that Augustine insisted on a 6,000 year timeline for the creation of man, and that the creation of man preceded the creation of all other living things.

A six thousand timeline for the creation of man is irrelevant. Your point would carry more weight if you showed that Augustine insisted on a 6,000 year timeline for the creation of everything and you can’t show that.

Of course, you seem to have consistently ignored the position of Philo who clearly didn’t teach that the creation account was supposed to be interpreted in a slavishly literal fashion. He wrote in Greek and the Eastern Church liked his stuff so that’s probably why they never dogmatized a literal interpretation of the Creation account.

They aren’t upset when science explains how God did it and only take issue with science when it categorically proclaims that it has proved that God didn’t do it.

[Talishi]

I have shown that Augustine insisted on a 6,000 year timeline for the creation of man, and that the creation of man preceded the creation of all other living things.

A six thousand timeline for the creation of man is irrelevant. Your point would carry more weight if you showed that Augustine insisted on a 6,000 year timeline for the creation of everything and you can’t show that.

I have shown that the creation of man preceded the creation of all other things. The only thing that preceded the creation of man was a barren earth.

[JLB32168]

I have shown that the creation of man preceded the creation of all other things. The only thing that preceded the creation of man was a barren earth.

No you haven’t. You have shown at best a discrepancy between the two accounts. Genesis One clearly shows that everything was created first. Man’s creation doesn’t come until the twenty-seventh verse after everything has been created. The writer/s of Genesis two couldn’t have been oblivious to Genesis One. Since they had to have been aware of Genesis one they could have easily edited it to comport with Genesis two; however, they did not. That means that they obviously didn’t find Gen. 1 and Gen. 2 to be irreconcilable.

Genesis 2 has God resting on the seventh day in verse two. It has the creation of man occurring in verse seven. If we assume chronological order for Genesis two, which makes the most sense then the creation of man comes after the creation of everything else. That clearly comports with Genesis one which has man created after everything else.

Your conclusion makes too many assumptions.

[PghPanther]

Scriptures refer to a heaven or in fact "layers of heavens" which over time have been discovered to be inaccurate in reality so each time this has been validated theist come up with a new idea of where the spiritual heaven might exist when in reality there is only one place this heaven exists..........

In the imagination of the believer.........period.

Heaven is a hope, an idea..........a desire.......with no foundation or validation that it is part of reality.

Just because humans can dream up hopes doesn't mean they exist in reality, and if reality just isn't fair or just to all a person can't hope that would change based on a supernatural being making it all right in the end............

reality is what it is and the sooner we learn the deal with it the better......

I'm convinced that a Biblical faith based world view of reality has its genesis and sustainability over the simple fact that humans as an evolved social species have a hard time accepting that life is not fair and sometimes injustice prevails on the innocent........and the desire to right this by humans is so strong that any hope in stories or accounts that demonstrate a solution no matter how unproven will gain traction in society. Especially in claims of the imagination that cannot be "disproven" by observational reality but yet never validated either............and this hope is often especially prevalent among those in whom this injustice has been painfully served within their lives.

[JLB32168]

Scriptures refer to a heaven or in fact "layers of heavens" which over time have been discovered to be inaccurate in reality so each time this has been validated theist come up with a new idea of where the spiritual heaven might exist when in reality there is only one place this heaven exists.

What are the layers of heavens that are taught in the Scriptures, according to you?

Just because humans can dream up hopes doesn't mean they exist in reality . . .

Water is wet, and the sky is blue in FL on a clear afternoon, and women like shoe sales.

Has anyone on this thread said that their hopes and dreams are scientific fact? If not then do we really need to be Cpt. Obvious and tell everyone that hopes and dreams might just be that – mere hopes and dreams?

Isn’t what constitutes reality and if supernatural entities are a part of it what we’re debating?