There is a rather obscure statement in Acts 2:34 that specifies that "David himself never ascended to heaven". The obvious question that arises from this remark is -- who ever believed that David ascended to heaven? To answer this, we need to look where else but to the pseudepigrapha. But the text in Acts 2 does provide some interesting clues. The text is part of an extended midrash on Psalm 16:8-11, a psalm attributed to King David. In this miktam on Yahweh as one's heritage, David states:
Psalm 16:8-11
"I keep Yahweh before me always, for with him at my right hand nothing can shake me. So my heart exults, my very soul rejoices, my body, too, will rest securely, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor allow the one you love to see the Pit; you will reveal the path of life to me, give me unbounded joy in your presence, and at your right hand everlasting pleasures."
Most Bible scholars understand that this verse originally did not refer to a resurrection but to salvation from death; it is expressing a sort of "everlasting love" hope, that his relationship with God is so total and complete that not even death could break his devotion to Yahweh. It is on this basis that some later believed that indeed David never did die. Peter counters this by saying that the actual referrent of the psalm was not King David himself but his descendant, his successor to the throne, who died but was indeed resurrected so that his body "did not see corruption" (the LXX equivalent of the Hebrew "Pit"). The proof of this, Peter says, is that "no one can deny that the patriarch David himself is dead and buried; his tomb is still with us" (Acts 2:29).
Indeed, there were those who believed that David and other patriarchs (e.g. "ancient worthies") were preserved in Paradise. But Peter's proof against this view, that tombs of these people existed, is actually based on a misunderstanding. Enoch and Elijah were both mentioned in the OT as bodily taken by God; in the case of Elijah, physically to heaven (Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 2:1). The removal of the patriarchs and David to Paradise presented more of a problem because their death and burial was an accepted fact and their tombs were known as shrines. This problem was circumvented in the pseudepigraphal testaments by noting that the soul of each patriarch was removed to be with God though the body itself was buried. The Testament of Abraham, for instance describes the death of Abraham as follows:
"Isaac his son came and fell upon his breast weeping. Then also his wife Sarah came and embraced his feet, wailing bitterly. Also all his male and female servants came and encircled the couch, wailing greatly. And Abraham entered the depression of death. And Death said to Abraham, 'Come, kiss my right hand, and may cheerfulness and life and strength come to you.' For Death deceived Abraham. And he kissed his hand and immediately his soul cleaved to the hand of Death. And immediately Michael the archangel stood beside him with multitudes of angels, and they bore his precious soul in their hands in divinely woven linen. And they tended the body of the righteous Abraham with divine ointments and perfumes until the third day after his death. And they buried him in the promised land at the oak of Mamre, while the angels escorted his precious soul and ascended into heaven singing the thrice-holy hymn to God, the master of all, and they set it down for the worship of the God and Father. And after great praise in song and glorification had been offered to the Lord, and when Abraham had worshipped, the undefiled voice of the God and Father came speaking thus: 'Take, then, my friend Abraham into Paradise, where there are the tents of my righteous ones and where the mansions of my holy ones, Isaac and Jacob, are in his bosom, where there is no toil, no grief, no moaning, but peace and exultation and endless life.' " (Testament of Abraham 20:6-14)
This story explains a number of otherwise obscure things in the Gospels. First, there is the reference to the "Bosom of Abraham" in Luke 16:22-23 as a place of bliss for the righteous dead. This is the same place referred to in the Testament of Abraham. The parable in Luke 16 in fact presents Abraham as still living and having a conversation with the dead rich man (Luke 16:27-31), drawing on the popular conception as Abraham being rescued into Paradise. Luke 20:37-38 similarly refers to God as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living." While this is applied by Luke to the resurrection, it also draws again on popular conceptions of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as still alive in Paradise.
The Testament of Isaac 7:1-2 thus mentions the assumption of Isaac into Paradise: "When Isaac had said this, the Lord took his soul from his body and it was white as snow; he took possession of it and carried it with him upon his holy chariot and ascended with it to the heavens, while the cherubim were singing praises before it, likewise his holy angels. The Lord bestowed upon him the kingdom of heaven, and everything which our father desired out of the abundance of blessings from God he had." The description of the assumption is probably dependent on the description of Elijah's chariot-bound ascension in 2 Kings. The Testament of Jacob tells a similar story regarding Jacob:
"Jacob is again taken up, this time to heaven, where all is light and joy. He sees Abraham and Isaac and is shown all the joys of the redeemed. Jacob returns to earth, gives instructions for his burial in the land of his fathers, and passes away at the age of 147 years. The Lord comes down with the angels Michael and Gabriel to bear Jacob's soul to heaven. Joseph orders his father's body to be embalmed in the Egyptian manner." (Testament of Jacob 5:10-14)
Again, the burial of a physical body does not rule out the ascension of the patriarch's soul to Paradise. The question of what happens to the body is significant, however, in view of the hope of a later resurrection of the patriarch on the Day of Judgement. This issue comes up specifically in the case of Moses, the subject of the Assumption of Moses. Like the other assumption tales of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Elijah, this story tells of Moses' soul ascending to Paradise but it also mentions a dispute with Satan over the fate of Moses' body. Although the original ending to the story has been lost, Jude 9 summarizes the story:
"Not even did the archangel Michael, when he was engaged in argument with the Devil about the corpse of Moses, dared to denounce him in the language of abuse; all he said was, 'Let the Lord correct you.' " (Jude 9)
Ancient authorities such as the Council of Nicea and others recognizes that Jude was alluding the Assumption of Moses, and there are literary allusions elsewhere in Jude as well (e.g. Assumption of Moses 10:5-6 = Jude 12-13; Assumption of Moses 7:3-4 = Jude 18-19; Assumption of Moses 7:9 = Jude 16). The role of Michael the archangel in Jude 9 is parallel to his role in the Testament of Abraham and the Testament of Jacob. Although the reason for the dispute over Moses' corpse is not preserved, it probably has something to do with the later resurrection and judgment. The episode in the Assumption of Moses, which incidentally also concerns Joshua and the last testament Moses gives to him, may also have something to do with Zechariah's vision of Joshua in Zechariah 3:1-2 which involves a dispute between Joshua and Satan and the "angel of Yahweh" saying to him, "May Yahweh rebuke you, Satan, may Yahweh rebuke you."
The Ascension of Isaiah also relates the story of Isaiah's ascension to heaven and presents a legend on Isaiah's death alluded in Hebrews 11:37. The Apocalypse of Moses, otherwise known as the Life of Adam and Eve, also relates the story of Adam's deliverance to Paradise after death.
But what of David? Some Jewish writers did regard him as having ascended to heaven as well. This view is most clearly stated in the first century B.C. Apocalypse of Zephaniah:
"Then a great angel came forth having a golden trumpet in his hand, and he blew it three times over my head, saying, 'Be courageous! O one who has triumphed. Prevail! O one who has prevailed. For you have triumphed over the accuser, and you have escaped from the abyss and Hades. You will now cross over the crossing place. For your name is written in the Book of the Living.' I wanted to embrace him, but I was unable to embrace the great angel because his glory is great. Then he ran to all the righteous ones, namely, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Enoch and Elijah and David. He spoke with them as friend to friend speaking with one another. (Apocalypse of Zephaniah 9:1-5)
A later Christian Apocalypse of Paul, inspired by the experience in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, elaborates this notion further:
"And I saw in the midst of the city an altar exceeding high. And there was one standing by the altar whose face shined like the sun, and he held in his hands a psaltery and an harp and sang praises, saying: 'Alleluia.' And his voice filled all the city. And when all that were upon the towers and the gates heard him, they answered: 'Alleluia,' so that the foundations of the city were shaken. And I asked the angel and said: 'Who is this, Lord, that is of so great might?' And the angel said to me: 'This is David. This is the city of Jerusalem; and when Christ the king of eternity shall come in the fullness of his kingdom, he shall again go before him to sing praises, and all the righteous together shall sing praises, answering: "Alleluia" '. And I said: 'Lord, how is it that David only above the rest of the saints is at the beginning of singing praises?' And the angel answered and said to me: 'Because Christ the Son of God sits at the right hand of his Father, this David shall sing praises before him in the seventh heaven.' " (Apocalypse of Paul 29)
The view of Peter (or perhaps more properly, Luke's conception of Peter) in Acts 2 disputes this notion but fails to adequately refute it by attacking a "straw man," pointing to the physical corpse in the tomb when believers in David's ascension apparently believed in the ascension of David's soul to heaven as what happened and fulfilling his words in Psalm 16 (which in the original Hebrew, makes no mention of the "corruption" of David's body, only the abandonment of his soul in Hades and the "Pit"). Peter is misled by the LXX translation, which renders Hebrew shachath "Pit" as "corruption" (Gk. diaphthoran), which in proximity to the mention of "my flesh" (Gk. sarx mon) in vs. 9 seems to allude to the decay of human flesh at death:
9 dia touto hufranqh h kardia mou kai hgalliasato h glwssa mou eti de kai h sarx mou kataskhnwsei ep elpidi 10 oti ouk egkataleiyeis thn yuchn mou eis adhn oude dwseis ton osion sou idein diafqoran
But the believers of David's ascension who were not dependent on the Greek Septuagint (e.g. such as native Aramaic speakers or those who read Hebrew) would not have necessarily understood Psalm 16 the same way as Luke-Peter and would not have necessarily understood the resurrection of Jesus before his body decayed as a fulfillment of Psalm 16:9-10.
Finally, John goes much further than Luke by saying in John 3:13 that "no one has ascended up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven." Although Luke allows for the presence of Abraham in Paradise (which is ambiguously located as an abode of the righteous in Hades, though a common view at the time was that the gate to Paradise was located in Hades but Paradise itself was in heaven), John wants to limit heavenly ascension only to Jesus. The reason for this is quite clear when we consider the otherwise anti-Gnostic rhetoric of the gospel (which, incidentally, draws on a Gnostic source of Jesus sayings). The Gnostics believed that Deity resides in all people, humans originate in heaven but through the Demiurge are born in corruption on earth, and through correct self-knowledge may return to heaven and live with immortality and incorruption. By limiting past ascensions only to Jesus, John refutes the Gnostic notion and argues that only with faith in Jesus, and not through anyone's own natural right, may people have "eternal life" (as the Son is the source of life, John 5:25-26) and join him in heaven when he returns (John 6:40; 14:1-3).