The ascent of Jesus into heaven (Acts 1: 2–11; a shorter version
is in Luke 24: 50–3). There are two OT stories and also Ps. 110
which form the background of the accounts. When Enoch had
attained 365 years, he ‘walked with God’; then he was no more,
because God took him (Gen. 5: 24); the prophet Elijah was taken
to heaven by a whirlwind (2 Kgs. 2: 11). Ascension stories (e.g.
of Heracles) also circulated in the pagan Hellenistic world. The
character of Jesus' appearances after Easter as recorded by Luke
have a more ‘solid’ ‘corporeal’ and evidential nature than
elsewhere in the NT, even though the risen body could pass
through doors. It was necessary for Luke to explain that the
appearances would cease and be replaced by the presence in the
Church of the Holy Spirit, and his solution was to use the OT
notion of ascension after forty days (cf. Elijah's journey of
forty days and nights to Horeb the Mount of God, 1 Kgs. 19: 8)
to signify the termination of resurrection appearances and the
completion of Jesus' wo