by Dinesh » Sun Apr 08, 2012 12:04 pm
So, Danny's post got me thinking:
The Book of Mark says (at least, my edition says, ch. 16, v. 19):
"So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God."
There's nothing here about ascending, per se. He was simply "received", so he could just as easily simply vanished.
The Book of Luke says (ch 24, v. 51):
"And it came to pass, while he blessed, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven"
So, he was "carried", with no mechanism as to how he was "carried". But, I'll grant that this could be interpreted as an 'ascendancy'
None of the other synoptic books mentions anything regarding an ascendancy.
So, assume he actually ascended. In this case, we assume he must have been seen to ascend. How far does a human figure need to rise before loss of detail? Let's assume not as far as the lower cloud layer, approx 1464m from sea level. Let's therefore assume a quarter way up to the lower cloud level, which means he was seen as far as 366m approx. Let's assume that in order to be seen as he arose, he would be under observation for about a minute (Ground shaking, mind blowing events need to be observed for over a minute to attain meaning!). This means he arose 366m in 60 seconds, or roughly, 6m/s. Therefore:
2*g*h = (6)^2 => h = 1.8m
In other words, he would have risen about 6 feet and fallen back to earth.
So, OK, let's actually assume he went into orbit. Then we assume that he must have gone into an elliptical orbit. If the orbit was not elliptical, ie parabolic or hyperbolic, he ain't coming back! Then, the E formula for an elliptical orbit under the inverse square law of gravitation gives us:
E = -(GM)/(2*a)
where G is the gravitational constant, M tha mass of the sun and a the semi major axis of the ellipse.
Kepler's Third Law states:
(t)^2 = ((4*pi*pi)/MG)*a^3
Combining these, we get the initial energy of Christ's take-off and hence his initial velocity, as
(1/2)*m*(v^2) = (((GM)^0.66)/2)*((4*pi*pi)^0.333)/((t^2)^0.333) (Hope all the brackets are in place!)
Now, take the fact that he hasn't returned yet, which means the period of the orbit must be at least 2000 years, and that the average person weighing about 150 lbs has a mass of about 80kg. This now gives,
v = 0.000083 m/s.
So, his ascent was awfully slow! However, the important fact is that he could not have achieved escape velocity under either model. We therefore conclude that he must simply have been zapped (or zapped himself) into another dimension. We also therefore conclude that mark is more accurate, in that he was "received", ie simply vanished.
So, Danny's post got me thinking:
The Book of Mark says (at least, my edition says, ch. 16, v. 19):
[i]"So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God."[/i]
There's nothing here about ascending, per se. He was simply "received", so he could just as easily simply vanished.
The Book of Luke says (ch 24, v. 51):
[i]"And it came to pass, while he blessed, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven"[/i]
So, he was "carried", with no mechanism as to how he was "carried". But, I'll grant that this could be interpreted as an 'ascendancy'
None of the other synoptic books mentions anything regarding an ascendancy.
So, assume he actually ascended. In this case, we assume he must have been seen to ascend. How far does a human figure need to rise before loss of detail? Let's assume not as far as the lower cloud layer, approx 1464m from sea level. Let's therefore assume a quarter way up to the lower cloud level, which means he was seen as far as 366m approx. Let's assume that in order to be seen as he arose, he would be under observation for about a minute (Ground shaking, mind blowing events need to be observed for over a minute to attain meaning!). This means he arose 366m in 60 seconds, or roughly, 6m/s. Therefore:
2*g*h = (6)^2 => h = 1.8m
In other words, he would have risen about 6 feet and fallen back to earth.
So, OK, let's actually assume he went into orbit. Then we assume that he must have gone into an elliptical orbit. If the orbit was not elliptical, ie parabolic or hyperbolic, he ain't coming back! Then, the E formula for an elliptical orbit under the inverse square law of gravitation gives us:
E = -(GM)/(2*a)
where G is the gravitational constant, M tha mass of the sun and a the semi major axis of the ellipse.
Kepler's Third Law states:
(t)^2 = ((4*pi*pi)/MG)*a^3
Combining these, we get the initial energy of Christ's take-off and hence his initial velocity, as
(1/2)*m*(v^2) = (((GM)^0.66)/2)*((4*pi*pi)^0.333)/((t^2)^0.333) (Hope all the brackets are in place!)
Now, take the fact that he hasn't returned yet, which means the period of the orbit must be at least 2000 years, and that the average person weighing about 150 lbs has a mass of about 80kg. This now gives,
v = 0.000083 m/s.
So, his ascent was awfully slow! However, the important fact is that he could not have achieved escape velocity under either model. We therefore conclude that he must simply have been zapped (or zapped himself) into another dimension. We also therefore conclude that mark is more accurate, in that he was "received", ie simply vanished.