Luke 24:51

Luke 24:51 kai. avnefe,reto eivj to.n ouvrano,n {B}

Here a* and geo¹ join D and it^{a, b, d, e, ff2, j, l} in supporting the shorter text. (The Sinaitic Syriac condenses ver. Luke 24:51 by omitting die,sth and eivj to.n ouvrano,n, reading “And while he blessed them, he was lifted up from them”; thus, though shortened, syr^s still alludes to the ascension.) A minority of the Committee preferred the shorter reading, regarding the longer as a Western non-interpolation (see the Note following 24.53).

The majority of the Committee, however, favored the longer reading for the following reasons. (1) The rhythm of the sentence seems to require the presence of such a clause (compare the two coordinate clauses joined with kai, in ver. Luke 24:50 and in verses Luke 24:52-53). (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 @avnelh,mfqh#”) 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. avnefe,reto eivj to.n ouvrano,n in so many and such diversified witnesses, beginning with î⁷⁵ about A.D. 200. (4) If the clause were a copyist’s addition, prompted by his noticing the implications of Acts 1:1-2 (see point (2) above), one would have expected him to adopt some form of the verb avnalamba,nein, used in Acts 1:2 and other passages referring to the ascension, rather than the less appropriate avnafe,rein, which in the New Testament ordinarily has the specialized 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 Acts 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 (i.e., 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 proskunh,santej auvto,n from ver. Luke 24:52 — for when the account of the ascension has been eliminated, the mention of Jesus being worshipped seems less appropriate). ²⁰

²⁰ For other instances of what appear to be doctrinal alterations introduced by the Western reviser, see the comments on Ac 1.2 and 9 as well as the references mentioned in Group D in footnote 12, p. 226 below. Cf. also Eldon J. Epp, The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts (Cambridge, 1966).