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DLind
Guest
How did Jesus ascend to heaven? What are the ideas of how things like this are accomplished physically. I know we were there, but I wonder if any philosophers have written anything about this.
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StrawberryJam
Guest
Possible thoughts since we are talking about a supernatural event
- Angels carried him up?
- Clouds carried him up?
- He willed himself to rise to heaven?
- He did not go up so much as heavens bowed down to him to pick him up from a lower point?
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geometer
Guest
H’enoch was the first man to ascend. He walked with God and was not, for God took him. The body becomes spirit, experiences a low vertical vibration, and then vanishes.
Jesus said no one has ascended except he who has descended from heaven. He reveals that he actually did descend from heaven, because that is how it is. The body reforms a small distance above the ground and descends just as the body has been completely remade. Since one comes down to the ground when returning, one concludes that one had ascended. His word was perfect.
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StrawberryJam
Guest
How did he decend to hell though? The same way?
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geometer
Guest
I do not believe that the gospels say that he went to hell. He was in the tomb for three days. Paul might have said something confusing about it though…
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StrawberryJam
Guest
Thanks again! That does not surprise me at all.
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liquidpele
Guest
Furthermore, how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?
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Nita
Guest
It was St. Peter who revealed that Our Lord went to all those who had died prior to His crucifixion.
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; 3:19 in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, 3:20 who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
1 Peter 4:6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God.
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geometer
Guest
The gospel is the gospel of the kingdom of God. And there is no mention of hell in those verses. And there are no verses like that in the gospels…
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Nita
Guest
I was responding to your sentence that said “Paul might have said something …” Thus, my response about what St. Peter said.
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tonyrey
Guest
Everything Jesus said and did during His life on earth had to take into account the mentality and culture of the Jewish people at that time. He had to use language and symbols they understood. That is why there are so many parables to teach us that the Kingdom of Heaven exists within us and is not observable by the senses. Heaven is not a place but a spiritual state. Like truth, goodness, freedom and love it has no physical location.
The Gospel accounts of the appearances of Jesus after His Resurrection do not generally indicate directions. He appeared in a certain place and then disappeared. In the case of the Ascension He had to underline the fact that His mission on earth as a man had ended and that it was His final appearance until He returns at the end of the world. Since the Jews associated Sheol with the underworld it is understandable that He chose to levitate towards the sky until he disappeared from sight…
The Gospel accounts of the appearances of Jesus after His Resurrection do not generally indicate directions. He appeared in a certain place and then disappeared. In the case of the Ascension He had to underline the fact that His mission on earth as a man had ended and that it was His final appearance until He returns at the end of the world. Since the Jews associated Sheol with the underworld it is understandable that He chose to levitate towards the sky until he disappeared from sight…
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Detales
Guest
DLind~~“I know we were there” Who exactly is this “we” who were there? I feel left out! You mean you guys were* there*, and didn’t write your own Gospel???
Being such an unprivileged one who was not actually there himself, and lacking your own eyewitness account, I’m left to resort to such considerations as infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/lecture.html in addition to the extensive Catholic and pious matériel that has gone before my eyes.
And Tonyrey is right: “Everything Jesus said and did during His life on earth had to take into account the mentality and culture of the Jewish people at that time and region. He had to use language and symbols they understood.” which is why Teachers of that time used a tiered language of at least three levels to impart to a gathering only what they could hear at their level of accomplishment. They spoke differently to their close deciples. (See signature reference to Mark) Maurice Nicoll wrote extensively about this in The New Man. The problem is, given that such language is used even today for the same reason, it brings up a whole batch of piously very disconcerting questions about Jesus’ ministry to begin with.
Being such an unprivileged one who was not actually there himself, and lacking your own eyewitness account, I’m left to resort to such considerations as infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/lecture.html in addition to the extensive Catholic and pious matériel that has gone before my eyes.
And Tonyrey is right: “Everything Jesus said and did during His life on earth had to take into account the mentality and culture of the Jewish people at that time and region. He had to use language and symbols they understood.” which is why Teachers of that time used a tiered language of at least three levels to impart to a gathering only what they could hear at their level of accomplishment. They spoke differently to their close deciples. (See signature reference to Mark) Maurice Nicoll wrote extensively about this in The New Man. The problem is, given that such language is used even today for the same reason, it brings up a whole batch of piously very disconcerting questions about Jesus’ ministry to begin with.
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annem
Guest
Detales
So…,what do you know about Second Temple Judaism? Ever read the standard book on the subject, “Judaism and Hellenism” by Hengel, or anything on the honor/shame society of the ancient world? Read “Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus”, the basic book on literacy and the Second Temple Jews? Read “The Jesus Legend” and its interesting sifting of the latest research into oral and written cultures? Read “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” or N T Wright or…well, anything beyond tabloid trash like Harpur? A book so bad, so full of historical bloopers, so laughable to anyone with any knowledge of the subject, that it should only be used as landfill?
You may want to rethink commenting on subjects you know less than zip about.
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But may God flood you with graces, Annem
True enough.
So…,what do you know about Second Temple Judaism? Ever read the standard book on the subject, “Judaism and Hellenism” by Hengel, or anything on the honor/shame society of the ancient world? Read “Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus”, the basic book on literacy and the Second Temple Jews? Read “The Jesus Legend” and its interesting sifting of the latest research into oral and written cultures? Read “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” or N T Wright or…well, anything beyond tabloid trash like Harpur? A book so bad, so full of historical bloopers, so laughable to anyone with any knowledge of the subject, that it should only be used as landfill?
You may want to rethink commenting on subjects you know less than zip about.
’
But may God flood you with graces, Annem
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Jean_Anthony
Guest
This thread is already off topic. The OP’s question, the one everyone ought to be addresssing is: I wonder if any philosophers have written anything about this.
Unless you have something pertinent to say in answer to this question, please don’t respond in this thread. If you want to discuss the theological/social/historical/moral implications of Jesus’ Ascension, please start new threads in the appropriate fora. Thank you all.
Unless you have something pertinent to say in answer to this question, please don’t respond in this thread. If you want to discuss the theological/social/historical/moral implications of Jesus’ Ascension, please start new threads in the appropriate fora. Thank you all.
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nkbeth
Guest
Christ’s body did not physically descend from heaven. He was conceived in His mother’s womb.
He came from Heaven inasmuch as He was God, not literally and physically as He was man. In the Incarnation, He was conceived by the Holy Ghost but physically he was conceived in Mary.
Among all mankind only the God-man could ascend both body and soul with no help from others. But the Incarnation was accomplished in a different way than the ascension.
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geometer
Guest
Boy did you get a wrong number. He descended many times from heaven. This was his whole gospel message, that men can become sons of God. That he came down from heaven is the message of the eucharist, he said “I am the bread that came down from heaven…eat this bread.”
When he descended into the upper room in the presence of his disciples he descended from heaven. Proving his gospel to Thomas.
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nkbeth
Guest
Not being a theosophist, I can’t speak from your point of view. But I hope I dialed the right number from the Catholic point of view.
“No one has ascended except he who has descended from heaven”. God descended from heaven to be made man on earth: the God-man Christ. Christ, bodily formed in the womb of His mother, ascended into heaven to be with His Father. Christ’s body did not physically descend from heaven at the Incarnation.
When Christ appeared to the apostles in His glorified body, as God he descended upon them in a spiritual sense. But His body was still on earth both before and after he appeared to them through doors that were shut. He had not ascended yet. “The ascension” is a one time event.
I do agree that Christ descends upon us miraculously in the Eucharist and spiritually in other ways. But at the same time I think He remains in heaven until the end of the world when (I think you may say) He will descend again:
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead…
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chaz0426
Guest
The only way in scientific terms would be a UFO picking him up as some far out people do claim.
Other than that it’s a completely divine event since I guess body and soul are one and can fade in and out of existance at will in this world he ascended and vanished just like that. No way to explain it. Have fun trying to unless you believe the ufo theory.
Other than that it’s a completely divine event since I guess body and soul are one and can fade in and out of existance at will in this world he ascended and vanished just like that. No way to explain it. Have fun trying to unless you believe the ufo theory.
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Detales
Guest
When all the cards are on the table, chaz, it is a metaphorical event. It is just misunderstood because of the historicization of Jesus into “the one and only.”
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