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Did Jesus ascend from Bethany or from the Mount of Olives?

Hard question · The death and resurrection of Jesus · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate

Both true, in different senses
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The passages

Luke 24:50–51

Jesus “led them out as far as to Bethany”, blessed them, and was carried up into heaven.

And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

Acts 1:9–12

After the ascension the disciples returned to Jerusalem “from the mount called Olivet”, a sabbath day’s journey away.

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day’s journey.

The objection

Luke’s Gospel says Jesus led the disciples out to Bethany and was taken up from there. Acts says the disciples returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. Critics say the two books give different places for the ascension.

The answer

Bethany was a village on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, and the Gospels speak of the two together: Jesus came “unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives” (Mark 11:1; compare Luke 19:29). To go out from Jerusalem towards Bethany was to go up the Mount of Olives. In the oldest manuscripts Luke’s Greek in 24:50 is heōs pros Bēthanian, ‘as far as towards Bethany’ or ‘to the neighbourhood of Bethany’, not necessarily into the village itself.

Acts adds a detail of distance. The mount was “a sabbath day’s journey” from Jerusalem (Acts 1:12), about 2,000 cubits or roughly a kilometre, while the village of Bethany was “about fifteen furlongs off”, nearly three kilometres (John 11:18). So the ascension took place on the Mount of Olives, on the way over the hill towards Bethany. The same author wrote both books and named the place once by the district and once by the mountain, as Gill and Jamieson-Fausset-Brown both explain.

From the classic commentators

to Bethany—not to the village itself, but on the "descent" to it from Mount Olivet.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary, on Luke 24 (1871)
the town of Bethany was fifteen furlongs, or near two miles distance from Jerusalem, John 11:18 whereas the place from whence Christ ascended was but a sabbath day's journey from it, which was two thousand cubits, or about a mile, Acts 1:12John Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Luke 24 (1746–1763)

Sources

Further reading

Raised by: W. H. Burr, Self-Contradictions of the Bible (1860), EvilBible.com. Only the verse references come from these lists.

Checked 2026-10-22. All hard questions