quote jeremyp: John's resurrection account doesn't match Luke's /quote
Both tell us that Jesus appeared to the eleven at the house they had assembled at on the Sunday evening. John also tells us about a meeting in Galilee, thus corroborating Matthew and Mark.
In Luke's account, Jesus meets the disciples and then goes out to Bethany and ascends to heaven. In John's account, he doesn't do this. In fact he returns the next week and then appears in Galilee later.
Matthew's account of what happened in Galilee is totally different to John's.
These re not accounts of the same events just because they happened in the same places.
This was discussed on another thread. I posted there
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10537.msg535691#msg535691, but I don't seem to have had any reply. I'd be interested in your thoughts. The main part of my post is as follows:
The end of Luke has a significant textual variant where the original reading of Sinaiticus does not have "and was taken up into heaven." Ehrman thinks this was added later by orthodox scribes as a means of arguing against Docetists. However, the N27 committee give that phrase a B for certainty, i.e. there is "some degree of doubt". Let's look at whether it is troublesome for the orthodox view whether it is original and whether it is not original.
If it is not part of the original text, that is handy, in one sense, as it then removes any claim about Luke saying Jesus ascended to heaven on the day of his resurrection and leaves the actual timing of it to Luke's second document, the Book of Acts. That would be very convenient.
If it is part of the original text, then it leaves us with the question of whether 24:50, 51 says that Jesus did ascend to heaven on the day of his resurrection. The Greek is not as clear about as, say, the NIV English text. The NIV says, "When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven." The Greek, literally, says, "He led them out as far as Bethany and having raised his hands, he blessed them and it happened in his blessing the he parted from them and was carried into heaven". There is a δε at the start of 24:50 which is sometimes translated "and", but it is often not even translated into English.
I am not saying that 24:50, 51 cannot be read as Jesus ascending to heaven that same day, but there is some doubt about whether it does refer to the ascension at all (as Ehrman would argue) and it is not compelling that it even refers to the same day even if it does refer to the ascension.
Thus the only clear description of the actual ascension is in Acts 1.
