After the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples were staying in Jerusalem, being taught by Jesus. The Lord told them to wait in the city for the Holy Spirit. Luke records, “Now when He had spoken these things, as they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:9)
Although scholars do not know the exact spot of Jesus’ ascension, Luke’s Gospel records that Jesus led the disciples “out as far as Bethany” (Luke 24:50) where he ascended. Knowing Bethany is about 1.5 miles east of Jerusalem on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, the ascension must have taken place somewhere on the Mount of Olives. A relatively early tradition placed the spot at the summit. The pilgrim Aetheria (Egeria) speaks of a tradition on Palm Sunday where Christians would travel to the “Inbomon” (the Latinized form of the Greek ἐνβωμῷ, meaning “on the height”) while singing hymns. In a letter written by Jerome, dated to A. D. 404, he refers to the “glistening cross of Mount Olivet from which the Saviour made His ascension to the Father.”1 The Inbomon church has thus been at this site since at least the late fourth century.2 Ancient sources in fact say a woman named Pomnia (Poemenia) sponsored the building of a church at the spot of Jesus’ ascension in A.D. 378, referred to as the Church of the Holy Ascension.3 Excavations by L.H. Vincent in 1913 and Virgilio Corbo in 1959 have confirmed the site of this church. The original plan was an octagonal building with a circular inner colonnade featuring sixteen columns holding up a dome - a common design for "memorial" churches throughout the Levant.4 Corbo found that the original Inbomon/Church of the Holy Ascension was apparently destroyed by the Persians when they invaded Jerusalem in 614, rebuilt soon after, rebuilt again by the Crusaders, and transformed into a mosque by Salah al-Din (Saladin) in 1187, which still stands today.5
Gonzalo Baez-Camargo, Archaeological Commentary on the Bible, (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1984) 236.
Jack Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992) 165-167.
Jerome, Letter to Eustochium, 12 (NPNF, 2.6:200). ↩︎
Jack Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992) 167. ↩︎
Peter the Iberian, trans. Richard Raabe, Petrus der Iberer (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1895), 35. ↩︎
Jack Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992) 170. Finegan says Muslims continue to memorialize the ascension of Jesus here because the Qur’an says God “raised him up unto himself” (Surah 4:158). ↩︎
From What Mountain Did Jesus Ascend?
Site Study
| Hershel Wayne House | Mount of Olives
After the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples stayed in Jerusalem and were taught by Jesus. The Lord told them to wait in the city for the Holy Spirit. Luke records, “Now when He had spoken these things, as they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:9)
Although scholars do not know the exact spot of Jesus’ ascension, Luke’s Gospel records that Jesus led the disciples “out as far as Bethany” (Luke 24:50) where he ascended. Knowing Bethany is about 1.5 miles east of Jerusalem on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, the ascension must have taken place somewhere on the Mount of Olives. A relatively early tradition placed the spot at the summit. The pilgrim Aetheria (Egeria) speaks of a tradition on Palm Sunday where Christians would travel to the “Inbomon” (the Latinized form of the Greek ἐνβωμῷ, meaning “on the height”) while singing hymns. In a letter written by Jerome, dated to A. D. 404, he refers to the “glistening cross of Mount Olivet from which the Saviour made His ascension to the Father.” The Inbomon church has thus been at this site since at least the late fourth century. Ancient sources, in fact, say a woman named Pomnia (Poemenia) sponsored the building of a church at the spot of Jesus’ ascension in A.D. 378, referred to as the Church of the Holy Ascension. Excavations by L.H. Vincent in 1913 and Virgilio Corbo in 1959 have confirmed the site of this church. The original plan was an octagonal building with a circular inner colonnade featuring sixteen columns holding up a dome - a common design for "memorial" churches throughout the Levant. Corbo found that the original Inbomon/Church of the Holy Ascension was apparently destroyed by the Persians when they invaded Jerusalem in 614, rebuilt soon after, rebuilt again by the Crusaders, and transformed into a mosque by Salah al-Din (Saladin) in 1187, which still stands today.
Bibliography. Baez-Camargo, Gonzalo, Archaeological Commentary on the Bible (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1984), 236; Finegan, Jack, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 165-67; Jerome, Letter to Eustochium, 12(NPNF, 2.6:200); Peter the Iberian, trans. Richard Raabe, Petrus der Iberer (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1895), 35; Tsafrir, Yoram, "Ancient Churches in the Holy Land," Biblical Archaeology Review 19, (1993): 26-39, accessed April 16, 2012, http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=19&Issue=5&ArticleID=8.
Site Study
| Hershel Wayne House
As Jesus traveled the road from Jericho, approaching Jerusalem for the last time, He came to Bethany and Bethphage (Bethpage) “at the Mount of Olives.”
The Mount of Olives is a ridge running north-south, and is east of Jerusalem across the Kidron Valley. It is so named because of the great number of olive trees cultivated on terraces there to this day. It is about 2.5 miles long and has three peaks: Mount Scopus, et-Tur (where the Russian Orthodox Monastery of the Ascension and its prominent tower are located), and the Mount of Corruption (or Mount of Offense) located at the southern end of the valley opposite the City of David. Mount Scopus rises to 2,690 feet above sea level.
The Mount of Olives was the location of several important sites with regard to the New Testament. Already mentioned are Bethany and Bethphage. Jesus taught His disciples at a private place somewhere on the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane is located on the slope of the Mount. Tradition also locates Jesus’ ascension at the summit of the ridge, although the Scriptures indicate He ascended from a place near Bethany, on the east slope of the Mount of Olives. In Zechariah, the prophet says when Jesus returns the Mount will split in two east to west and allow a river to run from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea (Zech 14:4).
Many churches are found on the Mount of Olives, commemorating the events that took place there including: the Dominus Flevit (commemorating Jesus’ weeping over Jerusalem), the Basilica of Agony (also called the Church of All Nations), built on the site of an ancient Byzantine church memorializing the place where Jesus prayed and was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Chapel of Ascension, a mosque that was built over a very early Byzantine church and the Pater Noster church, built on the foundations of the fourth-century Eleona Church which itself was built over the cave that is the traditional place where Jesus gave the disciples the “Our Father” prayer.
2Now very early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him. He sat down and taught them. 3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman taken in adultery. Having set her in the middle, 4they told him, “Teacher, we found this woman in adultery, in the very act. 5Now in our law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. What then do you say about her?” 6They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of.
But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger. 7But when they continued asking him, he looked up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her.” 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger.
9They, when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning from the oldest, even to the last. Jesus was left alone with the woman where she was, in the middle. 10Jesus, standing up, saw her and said, “Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?”
11She said, “No one, Lord.”
Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more.”
12Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world.He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”
13The Pharisees therefore said to him, “You testify about yourself. Your testimony is not valid.”
14Jesus answered them, “Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from, and where I am going; but you don’t know where I came from, or where I am going. 15You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. 16Even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. 17It’s also written in your law that the testimony of two people is valid.18I am one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me.”
19They said therefore to him, “Where is your Father?”
Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”20Jesus spoke these words in the treasury, as he taught in the temple. Yet no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. 21Jesus said therefore again to them, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sins. Where I go, you can’t come.”
22The Jews therefore said, “Will he kill himself, because he says, ‘Where I am going, you can’t come’?”
23He said to them, “You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. 24I said therefore to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I amhe, you will die in your sins.”
25They said therefore to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. 26I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. However, he who sent me is true; and the things which I heard from him, these I say to the world.”
27They didn’t understand that he spoke to them about the Father. 28Jesus therefore said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, I say these things. 29He who sent me is with me. The Father hasn’t left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
30As he spoke these things, many believed in him. 31Jesus therefore said to those Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples. 32You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
33They answered him, “We are Abraham’s offspring, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How do you say, ‘You will be made free’?”
34Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin. 35A bondservant doesn’t live in the house forever. A son remains forever. 36If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 37I know that you are Abraham’s offspring, yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. 38I say the things which I have seen with my Father; and you also do the things which you have seen with your father.”
39They answered him, “Our father is Abraham.”
Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. 40But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham didn’t do this. 41You do the works of your father.”
They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.”
42Therefore Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven’t come of myself, but he sent me. 43Why don’t you understand my speech? Because you can’t hear my word. 44You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and the father of lies. 45But because I tell the truth, you don’t believe me. 46Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 47He who is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you don’t hear, because you are not of God.”
48Then the Jews answered him, “Don’t we say well that you are a Samaritan, and have a demon?”
49Jesus answered, “I don’t have a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50But I don’t seek my own glory. There is one who seeks and judges. 51Most certainly, I tell you, if a person keeps my word, he will never see death.”
52Then the Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, ‘If a man keeps my word, he will never taste of death.’53Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died. Who do you make yourself out to be?”
54Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is our God. 55You have not known him, but I know him. If I said, ‘I don’t know him,’ I would be like you, a liar. But I know him and keep his word. 56Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
57The Jews therefore said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?”
58Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.”
59Therefore they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, having gone through the middle of them, and so passed by.