"Ascension Scholarship: Past, Present and Future."

In this contribution, I review recent biblical scholarship on the Lukan ascension narratives, outline points of agreement and areas of ongoing debate, and briefly outline a possible agenda for future research. I roughly take the work of Mikeal Parsons (1987) and myself (1997) as termini a quo. First, I map some recent developments in textual criticism and their potential repercussions on the reconstruction of the initial text (Ausgangstext) of the ascension narratives. Second, since the study of Parsons, narrative criticism and literary approaches have become increasingly popular in Lukan studies, including the study of the ascension narratives. What are the issues that have emerged since Parsons? Third, both the ascension and the postmortem/postresurrection appearances can be (and have been) interpreted in the context of Greco-Roman assumption and apotheosis traditions as well as in the light of Jewish rapture traditions and eschatological expectations. On what grounds do recent interpreters decide on the proper context? Fourth, defining the function of the ascension in the wider complex of resurrection, exaltation, and appearances has led to widely divergent christological assessments. Debates about first-century monotheism, the interconnectedness (or not) of the resurrection, exaltation, and ascension, the appropriateness (or not) of the term “absentee Christology,” and adoptionist tendencies have yielded a rich harvest of variegated—if not conflicting—reconstructions of Lukan Christology. Fifth, the problem of the chronology of the forty days has recently led to a new proposal that needs to be addressed. Sixth, from a literary perspective, new proposals have been advanced to establish the function of the ascension as integral to the narrative plot of Acts. Finally, an increasing number of scholars in the tradition of “theological exegesis of Scripture” attempt to describe the dogmatic or even ontological implications (or, perhaps more cautiously, claims) of the Lukan ascension narratives.