The Westcott/Hort Nine
Luke 24:51b and 52a
It will be simpler to display these two passages together

Text

24:50. Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them.

24:51. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into Heaven.

24:52. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,

24:53. and were continually in the Temple blessing God.

This is the ending of the Gospel of Luke

Commentary

Lk 24:51b specifies Jesus's ascent to Heaven, which, as most viewers will remember from the Nicene Creed, is an essential element of later Christian belief. Without the disputed passages, Jesus might be thought of as merely vanishing from the story. The majesty of the moment, as augmented by the dispited 24:51b, thus augumented, is then echoed by the parallel addition in the next verse, 24:52a, which specifies the disciples' response as one of worship.

Metzger Commentary 162 records a minority preference for the version without the disputed passages, but adds: "the majority of the Committee, however, favored the longer reading for the following reasons.

• (1) The rhythm of the sentence seemed to require the presence of such a clause (compare the two coordinate clauses joined with kai in v50 and in v52-53.
• (2) Luke's opening statement in Acts ("In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, anelhmfqh") implies that he considered that he had made some reference, however brief, to the ascension at the close of his first book.
• (3) If the shorter text were original, it is difficult to account for the presence of kai anefereto eis ton ouranon in so many and such diversified witnesses, beginning with P75 about AD 200.
• (4) If the clause were a copyist's addition, prompted by his noticing the implications of Ac 1:1-2 (see point 2, above), one would have expected him to adopt some form of the verb analambanein, used in Ac 1:2 and other passages referring to the ascension, rather than the less appropriate anagerein, which in the New Testament ordinarily has the special meaning "to offer up." Finally,
• (5) the omission of the clause in a few witnesses can be accounted for either (a) through accidental scribal oversight occasioned by homoeoarcton (kaia . . . kaia . . .) or (b) by deliberate excision, either (i) in order to relieve the apparent contradiction between this account (which seemingly places the ascension late Easter night) and the account in Ac 1:3-11 (which dates the ascension forty days after Easter), or (ii) in order to introduce a subtle theological differentiation between the Gospel and the Acts (ie, the Western redactor, not approving of Luke's mentioning the ascension twice, first to conclude the earthly ministry of Jesus, and again, in Acts, to inaugurate the church age, preferred to push all doxological representations of Jesus to a time after the ascension in Acts, and therefore deleted the clause in question as well as the words proskunhsantes auton from v52 - for when the account of the ascension has been eliminated, the mention of Jesus being worshipped seems less appropriate)."

That is a long list. The question before us is what is likely to have stood in the archetype of Luke, the text as it was when it was first handed over to copyists. We observe:

• (1) Elegant sentence rhythm proves only elegance, not originality. Some would think that elegance might as easily be cited as an argument for a later date as for an earlier one.
• (2) There is indeed, given the disciples' worship in 24:52a, a presumption of Jesus's ascension in 24:51b, but 24:52a is another disputed passage, brought to our attention by the same pattern of occurrence in the manuscripts as 24:51b, and the two should probably be regarded as standing or falling together. We note the linkage, and pass on.
• (3) The presence of the long version in many texts does require that the additions be made relatively high up on the main line of transmission, but there is no insuperable objection to making that assumption; we have shown above that even if we include P75 in the calculation, as we must, there is enough room for the receptivity changes that might be required to furnish a motive for the additions.
• (4) We decline to specify the part of the lexicon on which a given copyist might have drawn to supply his added phrases. We have too little information about time, place, education, and theological intent. That verbs of offering or "lifting up" do occur in the context of Crucifixion and Resurrection narratives, however, may easily be verified by inspection of those portions of the Gospel texts. We cannot think that there is a strong objection here; rather, perhaps a clue to something which might be of interest if only we knew a little more about it. The assumption that scribes will always do the lexically obvious thing seems to us to be without substantial merit.
• (5) The provision of multiple motives for the required multiple omission of the same passage in several similar texts may be prudent, but few of them have much substance. If there had been a sentence containing that solemn event, the Ascension, in Luke at this point, one would think that, if anything, it would naturally attract, not negligence, but more than average attention and care. As for the double Ascension in Luke and Acts taken together, it is a problem, but one which is solved if the present passages are treated as interpolations. The omission of the actual Ascension from Luke is rational if it was intended to narrate that event at a later point in the successive narratives of Luke plus Acts. When Luke came to be considered as a separate Gospel, and thus as requiring to complete the Jesus story within itself, the original "parting" scene needed to be reconstrued as an Ascension scene, and the added material accomplishes exactly that.

All told, the undoubted learning and ingenuity of these "Committee" majority arguments does not seem to us to provide an overwhelmingly convincing case for the longer reading as original. In particular, they focus too narrowly on the single passages, and do not sufficiently weigh the evidence of related and relevant passages. We hold, then, with the Committee minority, and regretfully part company with the recurring majority. More cooks do not always make better broth.

Conclusion

Both these passages are best omitted from the original text, and construed as later clarifications and enhancements of theologically important moments in the Resurrection story, and perhaps as supplying an event in the separate Luke that was originally placed elsewhere in the composite Luke-Acts.

25 May 2006 / Contact The Project / Exit to Biblica Page