Bible Contradiction? Did Jesus ascend from Bethany or Mount Olivet?

For more of our posts responding to alleged Bible contradictions check out our Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions.

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Did Jesus ascend from Bethany or Mount Olivet?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:

Jesus ascended from Bethany.

“And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. 51 While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” (Luke 24:50-51)

Jesus ascended from Mount Olivet.

“And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight…Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.” (Acts 1:9, 12)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. Contexts for the verses used by the skeptic are important for the readers to know and to keep in mind.
   1. The verses that the skeptic uses to establish that Jesus ascended from Bethany comes from Luke chapter 24.  The chapter begins in verse 1 with the first day of the week and three days after Jesus have died on the Cross.  The main thrust of Luke 24 is to present the truth of the resurrection of Christ and how the disciples start discovering the truth of the resurrection and their encounter with the resurrected Jesus.  Luke 2:50-51 describes Jesus’ journey to his eventual ascension back to heaven.
   2. The verses that the skeptic uses to establish that Jesus ascended from Bethany comes from Acts chapter 1.  The chapter tells us that Jesus spent forty days on earth before His Ascension (Acts 1:3) with verses 9-11 describing Christ ascending back to Heaven and verses 12 onward what the witnesses did afterwards.
3. If one realizes that both the Gospel of Luke and Acts are written by the same author (Luke) it should make the reader cautious of any alleged claim of a Bible contradiction between any passages from the two book.  While this isn’t a complete argument knowing this should make any claim suspect.  Of course further rigorous arguments against this being a contradiction are supplied below.
4. In order to see whether there is a Bible contradiction we must know some information about both Mount Olivet and Bethany.
   1. Mount Olivet literally in the Greek is the mountain of “olive trees” or “of olive grove.”  It is actually a ridge near Jerusalem.  In terms of its exact location we are fortunate that Zechariah 14:4 gives us the location.  In Zechariah 14:4 the author gives us a Messianic prophecy concerning the Second Coming of Christ and locates Mount Olivet as east of Jerusalem: “In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south.“
   2. Bethany in the the Hebrew literally means “house of figs.”  According to the Bible it is a town which Simon the leper lived at (Mark 14:3) along with the siblings Mary, Martha and Lazarus (John 11:18 and Luke 10:38-42).  We are fortunate to have more details of the location of Bethany because of what John 11:18 says: “Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off.”  Literally in the Greek John 11:18 tells us the distance between Bethany and Jerusalem is 15 σταδίων which the NASB helps translate for us in English as about two miles.
5. The proximity of both Mount Olivet and Bethany to Jerusalem should make this claim of a Bible contradiction really suspect.
6. We do not have a Bible contradiction here because Bethany is located on the southeast slopes of Mount Olivet.  Since Bethany is on the slopes of Mount Olivet that means it is not a contradiction for Jesus to ascend to heaven from accounts that states He departed from Mount Olivet and near Bethany.
7. Just in case critics might think this is a convenient invention to get rid of the tension of a Bible contradiction note that the Biblical data also provide further collaborating evidence of Bethany being on the slopes of Mount Olivet.
   1. Mark 11:1 states “As they *approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He *sent two of His disciples…”  Note here how the NASB translation states Bethany was “near the Mount of Olives.“
   2. The Gospel of Luke record the final week of Jesus’ life of how He taught in the Temple every day but He did not stay in Jerusalem during the night.  Instead Luke 21:37 states “at evening He would go out and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet.”  So every morning and evening He would travel back and forth between Jerusalem and Mount Olivet.  Yet Matthew 21:17-18, Mark 11:11-12 would be more specific concerning where Jesus stayed on Mount Olivet: It was the town of Bethany.

We don’t have a Bible contradiction here.  Any skeptic who would use this to try to assert that this is a Bible contradiction is not only “making a mountain out of a molehill” but is just plain wrong and reveal his or her ignorance of biblical geography and the Bible itself.