do you think Jesus could have done this on purpose as well bc ceasar was to ascend after his death etc.
I cannot imagine Jesus' ascension having anything whatever to do with a polemic against (or some sort of corollary to) ideas emanating from the politico-religious Imperium. The context of Jesus' activity is the seat of revealed religion; as Grimmson points out, the prophet Elijah ascended ages before any Caesar claimed any such expectation.
This may be an attempt in modern comparative-religious studies to parallel the Exodus/Jehovah's trouncing Egypt's gods, and Jesus' triumphing over the Imperium. But this is a deeply flawed methodological approach, in my opinion. God's chosen people (his church) were languishing, but not like they were during Egyptian bondage. The present (NT) conditions were basically exilic, the result of the judgment of God on his chosen nation's sin.
Jews under foreign dominion endured a mixed fare. Perhaps the most significant fact was that the Jews were just as wretched under Rome's jackboots as anyone--no better, no worse, generally speaking. Daniel's prophecy is quite significant for understanding the exile and post exile conditions (and see all the post-exilic material). The Lord tells Daniel "the days of indignation" will not be over (thus, days of grace follow) until Messiah comes.
The prophecies of the "kings of the north and south" are there to show how the powers of the earth wage wars against one another, while the people of God huddle in obscurity, letting the tides of history wash back and forth over them. The worst treatment of the nation comes when the Jews draw attention to themselves--vaunt themselves and overvalue their self-importance--and throw in their lot with one side or another.
Eventually they become a target of opportunity when Antiochus IV (a petulant bully, stung by his humiliation by Roman power on Egyptian soil) decides to vent his pent-up rage on his way home upon a small separatist territory and people, basically defenseless nobodies who've just been scraping by in their little corner (but some of whom have pretentious notions based on past glories about their political importance).
Rome eventually comes to dominate the domains of the old Selucid empire, including Judea/Galilee. However, despite the fact that Rome is the terrible Beast of Daniel's prophecy, there is no expectation
in the New Testament Gospels or Acts, or much in the Epistles that Jesus is set to challenge the secular power of Rome. If we take Jesus' comments to Pilate seriously, the attitude of Christ to Caesar is that all this earnest exercise of power-on-earth is pretty meaningless, in the cosmic scheme.
I think the political-interests of modern scholars are driving an attempt to envision Jesus as in no-small-part concerned with confronting the political powers-of-this-age. Thus, Jesus ascension is presented as "the real thing" versus Caesar's proud and empty boasts. Seriously, does Jesus decide to "ascend" because Caesar has previously made such a claim, and Jesus needs to prove he's got more going on?
One of the biggest follies of this approach is the modern assumption that information flowed like water in the Roman age, like it does now. In the fairly small geographic region of Judea/Samaria/Galilee/Perea/Decapolis Jesus became reasonably well-known, but still was unknown to Pilate (governor during his entire ministry), and his description as given to Herod was error-ridden.
It took prodigious efforts by the secular powers to get elementary proclamations fully proclaimed. Caesar-worship was an ever-evolving, almost ad hoc religion. Every god-like attribute of any deity was probably (at some point) attributed to Caesar, and that truly because CAESAR needed to "one-up" all his competition. The point being: even if some proclamation somewhere was issued, promising one of the Caesars (or all subsequent and past Caesars) were now to "ascend" to the pantheon, why should we believe this amorphous notion was some challenge that needed to be met (literally or literarily) by Jesus?
It took a long time for Christian opposition to State/Caesar worship to come to define the antagonism. And then, the principles had to be promulgated from Rome, and trickle out to the rest of the Empire. Early formation of the Gospels and Acts (including the ascension) either eliminates Caesar as relevant;
OR it makes Jesus over as predicting his Caesar-confrontation, makes that--and not his conflict with the Jewish leaders, and rampant unbelief among the nation--his great aim.
None of that makes any biblical/historic sense of Jesus as
integrated with and
fulfillment of OT religion. The whole approach seems to be going essentially to politics to explain an essentially religious event.
