He was received up into heaven (Acts 1)

So, back to the New Testament, and Acts chapter one. Some people believe that Luke's gospel and the book of Acts were actually intended as documentary evidence for the trial of Paul, the former being an overview of Christianity and the latter the story of Paul and his role in the church. There are a lot of supposed contradictions here that are pretty easy to deal with. Right off the top, Does the gospel of Luke contain everything that Jesus did? No, of course not, and I think it's silly to imply Luke is making such a claim. What is most likely is that Luke is saying he included everything important that Jesus did, or even quite possibly the "all" represents the opposite Venn diagram of what the SAB implies, i.e. that all of Luke's gospel contains things Jesus did (which is not strictly true either, but we're just taking "all" too seriously here).

I answered when Jesus ascended in John chapter 20; the answer is 40 days as described here, the only passage that gives a specific time frame. Where did Jesus tell his disciples to go after his resurrection? It's always been my understanding that Jesus told them to go to Galilee, where they would see him, and then back to Jerusalem, where they would see him again and he would ascend into Heaven. Sure, it can be confusing. Should the gospel be preached to everyone? Yes! There is some information missing on this page, I would say. While Jesus's ministry during his time on earth was generally limited to the Jews in Judea and Galilee, it's recorded that he went to the Samaritans in John 4, and the the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 was ministered to. After Jesus was resurrected, he told his disciples to bring the Gospel to all people, so this apparent limiting of preaching to Jews only seems to have been for pre-resurrection times only. In addition to this, the passage from Acts 16 quoted is a bit odd, as Galatia is actually in Asia! Clearly Paul did preach in Asia, as he established several churches there, so whatever is going on in Acts 16:6 was temporary. (The seven churches written to in the first few chapters of Revelation are all in Asia, actually.) It's understood historically that the Apostles actually went pretty far with the Gospel just in the first century; some went to the area around the Black Sea, while others went to Parthia, which may have included parts of modern-day India. The Gospel also went pretty quickly to Ethiopia, perhaps by way of the eunuch mentioned in Acts chapter eight?

The "science" note on verse eleven I think can be outright dismissed as silly; just because someone somewhere had a weird interpretation of a Bible verse doesn't mean everyone has to care. (I assume that since it was brought up, it may have mattered to Galileo, but what happened to him is a whole can of worms outside of my scope here. I've read a lot about Galileo, and it's fascinating both what he accomplished as a scientist and what persecution he faced from the church because of it.)

What were the names of the Apostles? I actually addressed this in Matthew chapter ten, but I probably wasn't quite as thorough as I should have been. I honestly don't think there is such a thing as a "rank" of Apostles (although, yes, Peter is always listed first and Judas Iscariot is always last), so the real issue is discrepancy in the actual names. I think it's a safe assumption that Simon the Canaanite and Simon the Zealot are the same person; the hard one is whether Lebbaeus Thaddeus is the same person as Judas, brother of James. If you don't want a contradiction, you'd have to assume so; the Bible doesn't say they are, but it doesn't say they aren't, either. As I said in my previous comments, Lebbaeus Thaddeus seems to possibly be a nickname, so it's not out of the question. How many believers were there at the time of the ascension? I don't think this is a real problem. There's nothing in the text to indicate that these two verses are describing the same moment in time. I think the number given here in Acts is not the total number of believers, but the number that happened to be present when Peter was speaking. The "above five hundred" in 1Corinthians actually doesn't necessarily even mean believers; this could have happened in Galilee to a mixed group of believers and nonbelievers (the nonbelievers would mostly have not been aware that Jesus was resurrected, not having been witnesses of his death). It's really not specified. When was the Holy Ghost given? I know I've addressed this before, maybe several times, but I'll try and give a definitive answer here and make sure it's linked to on the page. As Jesus said earlier in this very chapter, there was a special event that happened on Pentecost when the believers were "baptized with the Holy Ghost". This is a special giving of the Holy Ghost that was for all believers in Jesus, and many theologians believe that from that day forward, the Holy Ghost was given to every believer from the time of their conversion. However, the Holy Ghost existed from eternity along with the other two persons of the Trinity, and there were special times and people before Pentecost that had the anointing of the Holy Ghost. The existence of these people is not a contradiction to the fact that the Holy Ghost was given on Pentecost; it's just that what happened on Pentecost was a major change in the role the Holy Ghost played in the Bible. Before Pentecost, even those mentions in the Old Testament of the "Spirit of God" are referring to the Holy Ghost.

Okay, on verse 18, there are three questions that are all intertwined, so I will answer them together: Who bought the potter's field? How did Judas die? What did Judas do with the silver? I actually addressed these in Matthew chapter 27, but let me reiterate here as a single narrative that puts this all together. Judas feels remorse for betraying Jesus, so he returns to the priests, and throws the silver down in front of them. He goes out and finds a field with a tree in it, and hangs himself on it. After his body hangs for some time, it somehow falls down and breaks open on the ground (and honestly, it doesn't make sense for a living human to burst open just from falling down; he would have to either fall from some height or have something wrong with him, like a partially decomposed body). The priests don't know what to do with the silver, because it's blood money, and they can't take it back, but they decide to buy the field Judas hanged himself in to serve as a cemetery; because the money was Judas's, in a sense he vicariously bought the field through the priests. The only thing not completely tied up by this narrative is why the field is called "the field of blood"; the answer is for both reasons given.

Okay, so the Psalms quoted by Peter were, in fact, written by David; I don't know why the SAB says they weren't. Yes, technically they weren't about Judas, but prophetically, scripture can have different shades of meaning, and I don't understand the basis for picking on Peter's choices like this.

Does God know and see everything? Yes, he does, and the verses being suggested to make a point against this are mostly misunderstood. Let me clear out a bunch of them by three statements: (1) Just because God asks a question doesn't mean he doesn't already know the answer, (2) the fact that people sometimes try to hide from God doesn't mean the attempt is in any way useful, and (3) when God tests someone it's so they will know themselves. In Genesis 11, the fact that God came down to see Babel doesn't imply he couldn't see it before, he's just putting in a more personal appearance for unknown reasons. Genesis 18:17 says nothing whatsoever about God not knowing something. In Genesis 18:20-21, God already knows about Sodom and Gomorrah, but for some reason feels it appropriate to have a face-to-face encounter with these people, so to speak (perhaps to call out comparatively righteous people like Lot?). I believe Hosea 8:4 is implying that God was in no way a part of the process of setting up these kings. Does God know what is in everyone's heart? I'm not sure why this is a separate question, but the answer is pretty much the same.

Does the Bible condemn gambling? This is a particularly interesting question for me on a personal level, because my degree is in mathematics, and my senior thesis was on gambling theory, with a particular focus on blackjack. I also at the end of my senior year took a class on the history of mathematics, and so for a project in that class, I did a report on the history of gambling. The simple answer to this question is "no" as the SAB itself admits, but it gets complicated because a lot of religious people have suggested that gambling is sinful, and have suggested verses in the Bible to support that idea. The thing I want to say about the history of gambling is that most forms of gambling have their roots in religious practices of divination. There certainly are places in the Bible where gambling is happening, but a lot of what the SAB implies to be gambling is just standard forms of divination. It simply was very common in many cultures, including the ancient Jewish world, to pray for the guidance of a god and then cast lots, or roll dice, or some such thing. So with all that being said, there's something to be said about items in both categories. Most of the verses on the "yes" side are about getting rich in general, which the Bible seems to be against. Proverbs 13:11 does seem particularly applicable to gambling, however, as it talks about "wealth gotten by vanity" (rather than hard work). 2Thessalonians 3:10 perhaps could be applied to gamblers, because most people don't consider gambling "work", but it's a controversial verse anyway. The Roman soldiers casting lots for Jesus's robe are probably the clearest case of actual gambling in the Bible, and it's pretty clear it's not something to look up to. As for all the verses in the "no" section, those are just standard methods of divination, as I said above. So here in Acts, the lot falls on Matthias to be the new member of "the twelve", and we never hear him mentioned again.

Who shall ascend into heaven? (Mark 16)

Mark 16 is going to be largely a repeat of all the questions from Matthew 28 (please check that one out as it explains a lot), but I know all of the resurrection accounts have their own quirks that need to be dealt with, so let's see what Mark brings up as new.

"Were the men or angels sitting or standing?" Yeah, this is a contradiction, but a pretty minor point. If I had to give my opinion, I'd go by the consensus of Mark and John's Gospels I guess. I was going to say because they were eye witnesses, but they weren't eye witnesses to this event, were they?

As the SAB points out, Mark's Gospel is largely believed by scholars to have ended at verse 8, making verses 9-20 a later edited better ending. This is probably true, as I understand some very good scholarship points to this being the case. The SAB goes on to address the last verses, however, so I do as well. And anyway, it reads like an add-on as it doesn't seem to stick with the more or less chronological story so far, but adds some notes about the day as a whole.

"Did the eleven disciples believe the two men?" I think this is a manufactured contradiction, as the verse in Luke doesn't say the two men were believed (and I do believe that this passage is talking about the two men from Luke, which I'm sure we'll hear more about when I cover that Gospel.) So they said Jesus had appeared to "Simon", but are we talking about Simon Peter, the apostle, or some other Simon? (You may have noticed that "Simon" "John" and "Mary" are very popular names in the N.T.)

There are a lot of other questions that I've answered in various places towards the end of this chapter, but the last one I see here being new is "When did Jesus ascend into heaven?" I suppose this may be a contradiction, but there are a few things to be said about the whole thing. As I already said, the last few verses of Mark aren't about establishing any kind of chronology of events, so they can be dismissed for this question. With that out of the way, only the passage in Luke 24 remains to be addressed, as the other verses, although listed separately, really do agree. (I mean, forty days is many days, isn't it?) So what is there to be said about the Luke passage? I would say this: There's no reason why Jesus couldn't have ascended into Heaven multiple times, after all, he came back down from Heaven to witness to a number of people long after Pentecost, most notably the Apostle Paul.