2 Kings 2:11 And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

John 3:13 "No man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, ... the Son of Man."

Some skeptics charge Jesus with missing out on Elijah being first to "ascend into heaven" but the solution is the same as it is today: The Hebrew word translated "heaven" in the first verse. shamiyim, simply means the sky, as "heavens" does metaphorically today. The "heavens" were also regarded as the abode of God, but at the time of 2 Kings there was as yet no conception of "Heaven" with a capital H as the special abode of God shared with His people.

The Greek word in the second verse, ouranos, can also mean the sky, but it is also used in the sense of God's realm (as in, the "Kingdom of Heaven" [ouranos]. Note John 3:27 "John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven." The word carries theological freight that shamiyim does not. Therefore, there is no conflict in these verses, for 2 Kings merely asserts where Elijah went physically and carries no theological overtones.

To this we need to add one more verse sometimes thrown in the fray:

Gen. 5:24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

The same answer applies here, but note as well that this verse does not say that Enoch went to "heaven" -- a critic merely assumes that Enoch went to heaven in order to find a contradiction!

This leads into a secondary objection:

1 Cor. 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

It is observed that Elijah and Enoch were both corrupt flesh and blood persons who could therefore not "inherit the kingdom of God." But neither Elijah nor Enoch did "inherit the kingdom of God" - they were simply taken away, Elijah into the physical sky, Enoch to an unspecified place. We do not know what their current state is. (For more, see here.)

Yes, indeed, more clumsy exegesis from the Ebon school to follow. This one I actually have some new material to talk about, for in the interim I have looked into the perception of the afterlife in the OT (see here).

Ebon dreamt that he refuted the Tekton response to the issue of Elijah's ascent to heaven versus Jesus' ascent into Heaven, and though senseless on the canvas, summarizes my argument thus: "In other words, Mr. Holding's defense consists of asserting that Elijah could not have gone to Heaven because the Old Testament had no concept of Heaven." Not exactly. The lack of a developed theological conception of Heaven in OT times simply shows that the author of the passage was not trying, via the account of Elijah being taken up to heaven, to relate that Elijah went to dwell with God in a particular locale. As my response showed, the verse simply leaves Elijah's destination in that sense unclear and thus unsuitable grist for the Skeptic's mill. It's clear that the men of that day didn't think Elijha's ascent was a forever deal: 2 Kings 2:16 NIV, "Look," they said, "we your servants have fifty able men. Let them go and look for your master. Perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has picked him up and set him down on some mountain or in some valley." (He inserts here a snide comment about the Trinity not being in the OT -- he needs to look here -- the precusors were in place and the template drawn already in the ANE.)

Clearly, though, Ebon is out of sorts, for he now says that, "it should be obvious to a Christian what was meant." Only if we suppose that a Christian will ignore the context of the passage in 2 Kings as Ebon has done. So, now that it has been explained and supported that the word "Heaven" as a specific abode of God was a doctrine of later development, how does he respond? Like so: There's no reason to conclude the text means anything other than what it says - Elijah was taken up into Heaven, Jesus said no one has ever been taken up into Heaven, and there, nyah, the contradiction stands. Thus, the fact that "Heaven" as a place for people to go after their sojourn on earth hadn't been developed when the text was written doesn't stop Ebon from insisting that the text refers to that very thing (while maintaining that there is "no reason" to conclude otherwise). What about the context indicating that witnesses to Elijah's being taken up to heaven went out to look for him? Not important, in Ebon's eyes. He's more concerned with the pointless carp asking where Elijah is, then. As we said, the universe is a big place, and if Ebon is a Trek fan he can surely be more creative than even that. Elijah may have been the founder of the transwarp conduit.

And while we are here, here's the obituary for Ebon's second postscript: Huzzah! Been there. Done that.