# Luke 24...



## amishrockstar (Jul 23, 2007)

I need a hand working through Luke 24; the reason for this is because I'm taking a Bible class at a secular college and the professor is trying to bring out a synoptic contradiction. Basically, while reading through Luke 24 there seems to be no 'break' between the 1st day of the week (when Jesus was resurrected) and His ascension. I'm confident that I'm overlooking something, but I've been working through this guy's *garbage *for quite a few hours now and I'm about to go to bed. 
I know Jesus did NOT ascend to heaven on the same day that He arose from the dead... So where's the 'break' between the resurrection and the ascension in Luke 24? Any thoughts?
*Thanks a lot,*
Matthew


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## Contra_Mundum (Jul 23, 2007)

All Luke does is summarize Jesus' resurrection-post resurrection activity. Once he passes the evening appearance of Jesus to his disciples in the upper room, along with a summary of Jesus' post resurrection teaching, he passes on without interruption to the ascension event.

1) why is the prof reading into the account 20th century conventions of story-telling? Does he actually think those folks couldn't tell time? Is he assuming that Luke was first read in hermetic isolation from the other gospels and apostolic tradition? Funny, Luke himself (see his prologue) seems well aware of the standard apostolic currency in the church-at-large. Does the prof really think Luke is interested in creating disharmonies? It's the prof who cannot read an ancient text like a foreign document.

2) Since Luke-Acts is a two volume set, it's obvious from the fuller ascension account of Acts 1 that Luke leaves out quite a bit from the end of volume 1. What? He forgot what he wrote on the other scroll?


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## amishrockstar (Jul 23, 2007)

*Rev. Buchanan,*

Thanks for your reply...

My professor is attempting to say that because the gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus prophesied "after I have been raised up, I shall go before you to Galilee" (14:28); that in Matthew, Christ told them to "go into all the world" (28:16ff); in Luke they are told to "stay" in Jerusalem; and John clearly has the appearances of Jesus taking place in Jerusalem, we then have contradictions taking place. The prof. summarizes it this way "Since the timing of Luke's account is Easter Sunday, it is ludicrous to imagine that the disciples raced back to Galilee to meet Jesus, did so, and then raced backed to Jerusalem to be told to stay in Jerusalem." Also, he writes that "Resurrection appearances initially take place in Jerusalem (JN.20:19-28; Jesus appears twice within a week's time in Jerusalem; if one speculates that the disciples ran off to Galilee in between appearances, in order to harmonize with Mark, one is still left with the problem of Luke's 'stay in the city').

That's why I figured that if I can prove *exegetically* that Jesus didn't give the command to stay in Jerusalem (Luke 24) on the very day that He was resurrected, but rather that the command was given 10 days before Pentecost, then I can offer a clear explanation: 
(1st) the initial appearances of Jesus DID take place in Jerusalem, 
(2nd) some time during the 40 day period Jesus met with His disciples in Galilee 
(3rd) The day of Jesus’ ascension, He gathered His disciples back together in Jerusalem and told them to "stay" there until they were clothed with power (10 days later).

My problem is that when I read Luke 24 and search for a 'break' between the resurrection (1st day) and Jesus' words "stay in the city" I just can't find it-- from the resurrection, Luke goes into the Emmaus road experience (same day), then the same Emmaus road guys are gathered together (that very evening) with the eleven and Jesus appears while they are eating and He tells them to "stay" in the city. It appears (grammatically) that all this happened on the same day.

Anymore thoughts???

*I appreciate your help!*


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## Contra_Mundum (Jul 23, 2007)

Hi brother.
1) I'm not sanguine about you (or anyone) being able to "revise" the viewpoint your prof has settled into. So, I'm basically giving YOU counsel, not suggestions for doing battle with him.

2) Mt. & Mk. Jesus tells his disciples he's getting a meeting together in Galilee, which is where Mt tells us he gives the great commission. Certainly John also indicates that Jesus met with some of the disciples at the Sea shore. So all we know from Mt and Jn is that the disciples took an excursion to Galilee.

So, either they did so _because _they remembered Jesus command, or they did so _in spite of_ what they *thought* Jesus said about staying in Jerusalem. But it is certainly a fact that they went back to Galilee _for a short time_.

3) Luke does not mention a trip to Galilee. Does this mean there was NO trip to Galilee? As I said before, LOOK AT ACTS 1:3. Luke HIMSELF states that there was a 40 DAY PERIOD before Jesus' ascension. So, DID LUKE FORGET WHAT HE WROTE ON THE OTHER SCROLL?!? Did he write first that Jesus ascended to heaven on Sunday or Monday after the Resurrection, and then OOPS, change that at the start of the new scroll? Obviously, he never meant his final words (our chapter 24) to be taken as a one day event.

Either from verse 44 on, or from verse 50 on, the concluding events of 40 DAYS are telescoped.

4) Frankly, given all the other evidence JUST FROM LUKE (see his Acts) at this point to insist that Jesus' terminology "stay in the city" MUST mean that the disciples were to be PLANTED in the city and imovable is just a blinkered, myopic reading of the text. Just making it say what he wants it to say, and not reading even the ONE author as an educated man of his day (he was a doctor after all). They all immediately went OUT of the city (disobeying?) and watched Jesus ascend up to heaven! The very context indicates that it wasn't a woodenly literal command.

There are two simple explanations for Jesus' words:
i) assuming they were stated on Easter they were not stated absolutely, but with an implied contingency, given a FUTURE planned meeting in Galilee. In other words, they were not to go off and start lives elsewhere. Of course you only know about the contingency when you read the other 3 gospels. So, was Luke hermetically sealed off from the apostolic witness (Luke 1:1-4)? So he's telescoping, an obvious fact from Acts 1. It is ARTIFICIAL to read Luke 24 as if he is deceptively pressing these events into a single day, when he clearly knew it was more than a day.

ii) An even more likely explanation (than that he told them to "stay in the city PRIOR to the meeting in Galilee) is that, although there is no OBVIOUS temporal break at verse 44 (due to the telescopic nature of the 40 days), the words of Jesus from that point were stated on day 40, and the disciples DID in fact stay in Jerusalem for 10 MORE days, until Pentecost, as Luke himself relates in Acts 1:13ff.

5) the truth is, the key to interpreting the text is in not treating Luke like a moron. The prof would have you believe Luke is a moron. So, do you believe Luke, or your prof? Does the prof even know that Luke's book is in two volumes? Does he even realize that Luke KNOWINGLY collapses 40 days into a few statements and activities of Jesus? Just a few sentences, which he in part unpacks and elaborates to begin PART 2? Is the prof a MORON? Or does he just treat his class like MORONS?

He probably doesn't even care. He probably doesn't even believe Luke was a real person. He probably doesn't believe he was a meticulous investigator. He just wants to tear down people's faith. And if he can do that with selective reading, with ignoring the connection of Luke 24 to Acts 1, hiding it from his class, etc., that makes him happy.


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## amishrockstar (Jul 23, 2007)

Hey THANKS Rev. Buchanan,
That definitely sheds more 'light' on the texts...
The prof seems to regurgitate Jesus Seminar stuff in his textbook (he cites John Dominic Crossan and Robert Funk as authorities), so I've been trying to 'catch up' with what those people teach and see how other believers have refuted their arguments-- I've been pushed to get a better understanding of my faith, which is a good thing, but it really gets tiring having to wade through all the garbage, fallacies, and his own contradictory statements.

*THANKS AGAIN!*


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## panta dokimazete (Jul 23, 2007)

Sites that may be helpful as you defend:

http://www.carm.org/

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/

http://apologetics.com/

http://comereason.org/


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