One of the better pieces of biblical theology that we've read lately is Fr. Robert Barron's Ascension, Plato and the Bible, posted at RealClearReligion. It captures the essence of what puzzles many contemporary readers of the Bible--what is Jesus' ascension all about--and rightly corrects the nasty neo-Platonism that infects too much casual Christian thinking.
We add only that as narrated in Acts, Jesus' ascension did seem to involve his visibly going up into the sky, as a visible symbol of going to the ouranos, meaning either "sky" or "God's place." We're sure that Fr. Barron would agree.
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SWNID's hero, Tom Wright, talks much of this in one of his recent popular works "Surprised by Hope". Alot of Resurrection/Ascension talk. Correcting Platonic influences in the West is at the core of his argument.
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