Above: Icon of the Ascension, by Andrei Rublev
Image in the Public Domain
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READING LUKE-ACTS, PART LIII
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Luke 24:50-53
Acts 1:1-11
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Given that I have written numerous blog posts about the Ascension, and given that they are available at this weblog, I do not seek to replicate them in this post.
As I continue through Luke-Acts, I notice a narrative contradiction. Luke 24:50-53, read within the narrative context of chapter 24, dates the Ascension to Easter Day. Yet Acts 1:3 dates the Ascension to forty days after Easter Day. Interpretations of this discrepancy include:
- “Forty days” is symbolic,
- The forty days fill out the calendar, and
- Acts 1:3 corrects Luke 24 after St. Luke the Evangelist uncovered more information than he had when he wrote the Gospel of Luke.
I am not a fundamentalist. Biblical inerrancy and infallibility are utter nonsense. If St. Luke changed his mind, so be it. If “forty days” is symbolic, so be it. I do not know which interpretation is corect.
Forty is frequently a symbolic number in the Bible. One may recall that the reign of King David lasted for about forty years, that the Hebrews wandered in the desert for forty years, that Jesus spent forty days in the desert, and that the mythical Great Flood lasted for forty days and forty nights. Forty is a sacred number in the Bible. It, therefore, recurs in the Bible for many more examples than i have cited. Forty, symbolically, is a round number that designates a fairly long time in terms of human existence or endurance.
So, even if the forty days (Acts 1:3) are symbolic, they still contradict Luke 24, with Jesus’s resurrection and the Ascension occurring on the same day.
Anyway, “ascension” may not be the most accurate word for Jesus’ departure. “Assumption” may be better. Christ’s departure resembles the assumptions of Elijah (2 Kings 2:9-11; Sirach 48:9) and Enoch (Genesis 5:23-24; Sirach 49:14b), with apocalyptic imagery added.
The priestly gestures and blessings of Jesus before his departure, followed by worship, close the Gospel of Luke fittingly. Recall Luke 1:20-23, O reader: the priest Zechariah could not pronounce a blessing.
The Lukan accounts of the Ascension of Jesus also draw from Sirach 50:1-21, about the high priest Simon II. The account of Simon II depicts him as the culmination of Israel’s history, at the point of the composition of that book. Luke-Acts, which postdates Sirach, depicts Jesus as the culmination of Israel’s history.
In Luke 24, the Ascension is the fitting end of the story of Jesus. In Acts 1, however, the Ascension is the beginning of the story of the mission of the Church. Placing the two Lukan interpretations side-by-side provides the full picture.
I also detect one of St. Luke’s organizing principles in Luke 24 and Acts 1. Luke-Acts finishes focusing on one story before focusing on another one, although the stories may overlap. Consider the focus on St. John the Baptist (Luke 3) before the focus on Jesus (Luke 4-24), O reader. Then we come to a different focus, starting in Acts 1.
The story of the mission of the Church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, follows.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 2, 2022 COMMON ERA
ASH WEDNESDAY
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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