MICHAEL MEES
10. The Ascension in the Textual Tradition of Luke-Acts
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I. INTRODUCTION: THE ASCENSION IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
NE w Testament passages that offer a narrative description of the ascension of the risen Christ as ‘an observable incident’,’ that is, as a physical, visible transfer from earth to heaven, are extremely few; those passages that refer to the ascension as a theological event, without specifying its temporal or physical aspects, are slightly more numerous ; and those that assume the ‘heavenly abode’ of the risen Christ without reference to an ascension at all are the most numerous. These data are well known2 and hardly require documentation, though a brief summary will provide the necessary introduction for this study.
The exalted Christ. In the last category listed above are a number of passages that mention Christ’s resurrection and then affirm his heavenly, exalted position at God’s right hand, but with no reference to an ascension : Acts 2 : 33-4 ; cf. v. 25 ; 5 : 3 I ;3
Rom. 8: 34; I O: 6; E p h . I: 20-1; 2: 6; Col. 3: I; I T h e s s .
I : I o ; 4 : I 4-16 ; cf. 2 Cor. 4 : I 4 ; a similar set of passages refers to the exalted Christ, with his death-but not the resurrection or ascension-mentioned in the context : Phil. 2 : 8-g ; Heb. I : 3 and 13; 7: 26; I O: 12; I 2 : 2. Finally, though still in this same category, are passages that refer merely to Christ’s present I This is C. K. Barrett’s apt phrase in ?‘Ie Gospel according to St. John: An Intro- duction with Commentary and Jvotcs on the Greek T&t (London: SPCK, rg55), 471.
2 The full range of NT references can be found in such treatments as those by P. Benoit, ‘The Ascension’, in his Jesus and the Gosj~l (2 ~01s.; New York: Herder and Herder, x975-4), x.209-58, originally in RB 56 (Igag), 161-203; or by B. M. Metzger, ‘The Ascension of Jesus Christ’, in his Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian (NTTS 8; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1g68), 77-87.
3 The ‘Western’ text at Acts 5: 31 reads tjj Sd& (‘for his glory’) rather than
~jj SC& (‘to his right hand’); see Metzger et al., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London/New York: United Bible Societies, rg7r), 88%
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of NT references includes those that portray the ascension more concretely and explicitly in objectifying terms as a local and temporal occurrence with attendant witnesses. Such references are limited to a single NT author and to a few passages in Luke- Acts. If these Lucan texts are read in the so-called ‘Neutral’
textual tradition, they convey a very specific literal and ob- servable ascension to heaven of the resuscitated physical body of Jesus. The first passage comes at the conclusion of Luke’s gospel, where he provides only a minimal description of the event : ‘As he was blessing them, he departed (&&TV) from them and was taken up (&#+e~o) into heaven’ (Luke 24 : 5 I, Z?ZV). Then, as Luke recapitulates the closing events of Jesus’ career at the beginning of Acts (I : 2)’ he refers to ‘. . . the day when he was taken up (&Eh$_@~) . . . ‘) and proceeds to a full narrative in I : g-1 I : And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up (&T$@), and a cloud took (&&&&v) him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went (~op~uo~&ou), behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up (&+~$&ls) from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go (7~op~ud~~vov) into heaven’. (RS’V)
Finally, Luke refers again (in I : 22) to ‘. . . the day when he was taken up (~&hrj&$) from us . . . ‘.
Nowhere else in the NT is such a portrayal of the ascension to be found, though it should be noted, parenthetically for the moment, that the ‘longer ending’ of Mark
(16 : g-20) has a
statement of the ascension that, in the context, is similar to though less specific than Luke’s : ‘So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up (&~)(7j&$) into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God’(16 :
19, RSV). If, however, we ignore for the moment this pseudo-Marcan account, the ascension described in objectifying terms is restricted, in reality, to four NT passages : Luke 24 : 51, Acts I : 2 and I : 22, and Acts I : g-I I,a
rather meagre harvest.I I . T H E A S C E N S I O N I N T H E ‘ W E S T E R N ’ T E X T U A L C O N F I G U R A T I O N
The narrowing of the data supporting an objectified ascension to four Lucan passages provides a convenient focus for a thorough
Ascension in Textual Tradition of Luke-Acts I35 text-critical examination of the treatment of the ascension in the so-called ‘Western’ textual tradition. Such an investigation will show that the ‘Western’ variants present a most interesting- if not absolutely consistent-textual configuration. Some of the basic points were proffered go years ago by F. Graefes and again 50 years ago by Daniel Plooij in a less than easily accessible publication on ‘The Ascension in the “Western” Textual Tradition’,6 but the issue is worth reviving and presenting here, along with some additional points and considerable refinement.
Luke 24: 51. The first observation to be made is that the
‘Western’ text of Luke 24 :
51
lacks the clause, ’ . . . and was taken up into heaven’ :Luke 24: 51
Codex Vaticanus Codex Bezae
KUl +&To &J r@ E;AOy& KUl +&To E)v r& E?!AO+iJ
ahb a6r06s a67dv ahoh
SL&TTj ch’ a&& ch&r9j &T’ at;r&.
K a t &+~ETO ~2s rcb odpavdv.
6&q (= recessit) N* B cett] &T&T~) (= discessit) D d a b c e 1 Augustine.
/cal &$&TO E&T &v o~!puvdv p75 Hc B cett aur c f q (rl) vg syP9hpPa1
COPsa*b”
arm geo2 Diatessaron Augustine2i3 Cyril Cosmas] ouz 8* D d a b e ff 2 j 1” geol AugustinelP (Note : sy~ = ‘lifted up from them’).The result, in the ‘Western’ text, is that the risen Christ, as he was blessing his followers, ‘parted’ or ‘went away from them’, leaving now a highly unclear picture of what the author of the gospel intended to portray in the final paragraph of his first volume. Is it an ascension? One fact to be noted is that neither the GLL”O~~)~LL of B nor the &qbla~~~ of D appears in any other NT reference to the ascension.7 Is the lack of the more concrete 5 F. Graefe, ‘Der Schluss des Lukasevangeliums und der Anfang der Apostel- geschichte: Eine textkritische Studie, zugleich ein Beitrag zur Italaforschung’,
‘I;sx 61 (x888), 522-41. He treats Luke 24: 51 and Acts I: 2.
6 Mededeelingen der koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling letterkunde, 67: A.2 (Amsterdam, rg2g), 39-58.
7 There is no significant difference between the two Greek terms-at least for our purposes. D also uses d~@~rq~~ (instead of &r~~p~o~cu) in Luke I: 38 of the angel ‘departing’ from Mary. Actually, the term might be viewed as one favoured by D for it occurs four times as a variant in D (Mark 7: 6; Luke I : 38; 22: 41; and
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