John 6 they therefore rejected it." Jesus' response, "Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? (John 6:60-61) could be interpreted as: or it could mean William Robertson Nicoll suggests that "the second interpretation gives the better sense: you will find it easier to believe I came down from heaven, when you see me returning thither". In John's Gospel, Jesus' ascension "to where he was before" takes place through His death and resurrection: the Ascension on the Mount of Olives 40 days after Jesus' resurrection is not recorded in John's Gospel.
Ascension of Jesus Gospel of Mark (Mark 16:19) is a later addition to the original version of that gospel. Theologian James Dunn describes the ascension as at best a puzzle and at worst an embarrassment for an age which no longer conceives of a physical heaven located above the Earth. The cosmology of the author of Luke-Acts was quite different: his age believed in a three-part cosmos with the heavens above, a flat earth centered on Jerusalem in the middle, and the underworld below. Heaven was separated from the earth by the firmament, the visible sky, a solid inverted bowl where God's palace