Original Form of the Ascension of Isaiah

[andrewcriddle]

What does the manuscript tradition have to say about the location of the earliest "corrupted" Latin manuscript?

There is no surviving Latin manuscript of the short form of the Ascension of Isaiah.
The Latin text was printed in 1522 or thereabouts from a manuscript that no longer survives.

Hi Andrew,

IMO whoever it was that was responsible for the Latin text printed edition in 1522 would have to be the primary suspect (or related to the prime suspect) - as being the person responsible for the removal of the "weird bit" from chapter 11 . Therefore it would be interesting to know more about this 1522 edition. Who was the publisher? Where did he get his source manuscript? Who else was related in these transactions? etc

Be well,



LC

The Old Slavonic, the earliest surviving manuscript of which dates from before 1300, lacks the weird bit, the original removal is probably related to the Old Slavonic history of the text.
The Old Latin was published in 1522 by Antonius de Fantis his source is apparently entirely unknown, It is just possible that he never had a Latin manuscript but had a Slavonic manuscript translated into Latin for printing.

Andrew Criddle

[Leucius Charinus]

Hi All,

This text is rather central to the claims drawn from it by Earl Doherty and subsequently Richard Carrier.

Most academics following Charles postulate that we are looking not at one author and one text, but rather a combination of Jewish and Christian texts which have been cobbled together at some later time, and only finally attested (in its current form) by other Christian heresiologists in the later 4th century (Epiphanius is one, Jerome(?) is a second?). Based on this late 4th century attestation, most academics postulate a "gathering together of the parts" occurred in the 3rd century.

However in the above text Charles himself provides a number of reasons by which an argument may be made that two parts of the work (Testament of Hezekiah and the Vision of Isaiah) were written by the one and the same author. These are as follows:


http://archive.org/stream/cu31924014590 ... 9_djvu.txt
Full text of "The Ascension of Isaiah : translated from the Ethiopic version, which, together with the new Greek fragment, the Latin versions and the Latin translation of the Slavonic, is here published in full"

EDITED
WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND INDICES

BY

R. H. CHARLES, D.D.

PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL GREEK, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN

• Between the Testament of Hezekiah and the
  Vision of Isaiah there are so many similarities of
  thought and diction that it is not unreasonable to
  assume that, though they appear to have been
  independent works, they were the work of one
  amd the same writer, or the work of two closely
  related writers.
  
  Thus the following expressions and ideas are
  common to the two works: —
  
  The mention of the 'seven heavens,' iii. i8, iv. 14, 16, and passim in vi.-xi. ;
  ' garments ' ( = the spiritual body), iv. 1 1 , vii. aa, viii. 17, 36, &c.;
  'angel of the Holy Spirit,' iii. 16, vii. 33, &c. ;
  the blasphemous claim of the Anti-christ, iv. 6, 8, X. la, 13 ;
  judgement of the angels, and destruction of the world, iv. 18, x. 13

The claim that multiple texts existed prior to the full work is diametrically opposed to Occam.
This claim is based upon the assumption that because the text has different units within it, that
those units were not the product of one author, but require two, demonstrates a lack on the part
of the analysis.

What do others think about this issue?


Be well,



LC

[MrMacSon]

Most academics following Charles postulate that we are looking not at one author and one text, but rather a combination of Jewish and Christian texts which have been cobbled together at some later time, and only finally attested (in its current form) by other Christian heresiologists in the later 4th century ... most academics postulate a "gathering together of the parts" occurred in the 3rd century.

Between the Testament of Hezekiah and the
Vision of Isaiah there are so many similarities of
thought and diction that it is not unreasonable to
assume that, though they appear to have been
independent works, they were the work of one
amd the same writer, or the work of two closely
related writers.

It's feasible some texts were less redacted and 'attested' than others, or mostly or solely by one author or group of authors; even if most were not.

[Leucius Charinus]

Carrier on the Ascension of Isaiah, notes
Post by Kapyong

• 1. The final redaction of this appears to unite two separate texts (the 'Martyrdom of Isaiah' and the actual 'Ascension of Isaiah'), the latter being the text of which 1 am speaking here, which consists of chaps. 6-11 of the united whole. For this I have excerpted and adapted the translation provided in Willis Barnstone, The Other Bible (San Francisco. CA: Harper Collins. 1984). pp. 517-31. For scholarly analysis see Jonathan Knight, The Ascension of Isaiah (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. 1995). and Disciples of the Beloved One: The Christology, Social Setting and Theological Context of the Ascension of Isaiah (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), with additional collation, translation and commentary in Corpus christianorum: series apocryphorum. 7 and 8 (1995). However, contrary to the assumptions of Knight, there is no way the 'Martyrdom' was originally a part of the 'Ascension': even though the former came to comprise chaps. 1-5 of the now-combined text, it ends with Isaiah's death and refers 'back' to the "Ascension" tale as if it had been written before it (in Ascension of Isaiah 3): then suddenly a completely new story begins in chap. 6, with a new introduction, and no mention or awareness of the preceding material (much less that Isaiah had just died in the previous chapter). Knight's only arguments for unity are that the unified text is more elaborate (yet that could be from subsequent embellishment, exactly as happened to the epistles of Ignatius, or simply because the Latin translation was briefer) and he can explain why the "pocket gospel' was deleted (in the Latin and Slavonic) by supposing an anti-Docetic motive (but he has no actual evidence of either that motive or that the material was deleted rather than added). The one argument is logically invalid, and the other is a speculation and not an argument—but it is also illogical: an anti-Docetist would have fixed the account, not deleted the whole thing, and in fact what the pocket gospel is replaced with in the manuscripts lacking it is even more Docetic than what was removed. All the other evidence is against Knight (see following notes, and even his own observations in Disciples. 68-69).
  
  2. That the 'Ascension' text cannot date later than the early second century is evidenced by the fact that the text of the "Martyrdom' assumes the legend of "Nero's return' is still an imagined threat (in Asc. Is. 4. so that must have been written within decades of his death), and is unaware of any other emperor having persecuted Christians, two facts that place it nearer the same time as the book of Revelation (with which it has a lot else in common besides that: see Chapter 7. §3). and since the "Martyrdom' refers back to the Ascension' (see previous note), the latter must have been written even earlier. See Knight. Ascension, pp. 9-10: Disciples, pp. 33-34 and 205-208: and F. Crawford Burkitt. Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (London: H. Milford. 1914). p. 46. Knight's argument that the "Martyrdom" seems aware of the pocket gospel in the Ascension' (Asc. Is. 3.13-18 parallels 11.2-22) would at best only confirm that the interpolation of that pocket gospel occurred sometime in between (or was actually produced by the author of the "Martyrdom").
  
  3. Both Latin (L2) and Slavonic (S) manuscripts not only omit the "Martyrdom" (and thus only know of a text of Asc. Is. that begins at chap. 6) but also omit 11.3-22. the whole pocket gospel (see Corpus christianorum: series apocryphorum, 7 [Ascensio Isaiae]. pp. 231 and 315). replacing it with a new version of 11.2 (which I will discuss shortly).
  
  4. Irenaeus, Against All Heresies 1.3.2 reports that Christians who claimed the Gospels were allegories for celestial events also claimed Jesus continued speaking to his disciples for a year-and-a-half after his resurrection, which must mean that Jesus continued appearing in revelations for that span of time.
  
  5. My perspective on this document has been inspired by the analysis in Earl Doherty, Jesus: Neither God nor Man (The Case for a Mythical Jesus) (Ottawa: Age of Reason, 2009), pp. 119-26, which is well worth reading, even if I don't always concur with it.
  
  6. Although to be more precise it is the things on earth that are the 'copies' of their 'truer' versions in the heavens (Element 38).
  
  7. Even Knight agrees something from 'the lost Greek original' is missing from all extant manuscripts at this point (Disciples, p. 69).
  
  8. The defects of the inserted gospel are even greater than the defects of the version that fails to mention what we expect (and which not only fails to explain what happens after 11,2 but flubs 11.23). and thus the one is even less probable on a theory of authenticity than the other. Yet in either case the likelihood of having the text in the given state we have, if what we have is an unaltered text, is in my opinion no better than a million to one against. With a prior probability of a thousand to one the other way, that gets us odds of a thousand to one in favor of my conclusion—that the text in both traditions is missing what it originally contained. Using the odds form of Bayes's Theorem (see Chapter 12, §1): P(Missing|e) / P(Missing|not e) = 1/1000 x 1,000,000/1 = 1000/1.
  
  9. That Tammuz himself was also believed to have been resurrected is attested by Origen. Selecta in Ezechielem, in J.-P. Migne. Patrologiae cursus completus: series graeca 13.800: see also Apostolic Constitutions 5.12 and further discussion and sources in Carrier. Not the Impossible Faith, pp. 17-18 (with n. 1. p. 45). Possibly this cult of Inanna and Tammuz was an early form of the seasonal exchange of dying-and-rising known for other pairs of gods, such as Castor and Pollux. See Element 31 in Chapter 5.
  
  10. Translation and background: Samuel Noah Kramer, History Begins at Sumer; Thirty-Nine Firsts in Man's Recorded History (Philadelphia. PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 3rd rev. edn, 1981), pp. 154-67 (quoted excerpts from p. 162, lines 1-3; p. 160, line 3; and p. 163, lines 10-12 and 15-22). See also Pirjo Lapinkivi, The Neo-Assyrian Myth of Istar's Descent and Resurrection (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2010).
  
  11. This same scriptural quotation (verbatim or nearly) appeared in other apocalypses as well, yet (as in the Asc. Is.) not as a citation of scripture but simply what an angel says (see Corpus christianorum: series apocryphorum 8 [Ascensio Isaiae]. pp. 590-92). Paul thus is not only using a lost Apocalypse for his information about Jesus in 1 Corinthians 2 (and thus for his crucifixion), but he assumes his fellow Christians are intimately familiar with that Apocalypse as well, and revered it as scripture (see Element 9 in Chapter 4). We can rightly wonder what relationship that Apocalypse had to the Ascension of Isaiah. May it have been an earlier redaction of it?

Carrier sums up the argument for an early 2nd century dating of the AoI in point 2 above:

• That the 'Ascension' text cannot date later than the early second century is evidenced by the fact that the text of the "Martyrdom' assumes the legend of "Nero's return' is still an imagined threat (in Asc. Is. 4. so that must have been written within decades of his death), and is unaware of any other emperor having persecuted Christians, two facts that place it nearer the same time as the book of Revelation (with which it has a lot else in common besides that: see Chapter 7. §3). and since the "Martyrdom' refers back to the Ascension' (see previous note), the latter must have been written even earlier.

How is it possible to be sure that one can date a text according to what the text says when one does not know the genre of the text? I don't think its possible to do so. If this were some sort of newspaper report then I guess it may be possible. But what genre is the text AoI? It is a strange mixture of texts, with an obvious Christian addition squeezed between two separate accounts, possibly related but set in a reversed chronological order to that which is to be expected.

But we have evidence of people writing about Nero in the 4th century. (Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius), And from the Nag Hammadi codices (also of the 4th century) we have evidence of taking a pagan letter and making it a Christian message from Jesus. (Eugnostos ("Right Thinking"), the Blessed: NHC 3.3 --> NHC 5.1 --> NHC 3.4 "The Sophia of Jesus Christ").

The early dating of this text used by both JH and MJ proponents is fraught with many assumptions which may not be true.



LC

[neilgodfrey]

I understand that 1995 was a turning point in the study of the AoI. That year saw two pivotal Italian works that have paved the way for a new consensus:

Ascensio Isaiae: Textus, ed. P. Bettiolo, A. Giambelluca Kossova, E. Norelli, and L. Perrone (CCSA, 7; Turnhout, 1995);

E. Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius (CCSA, 8; Turnhout, 1995).

These were both included in volumes 7 and 8 of the Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum in 1995.

Charles is long superseded. I'm holding off discussion on the AoI until I can somehow access the above.

[Leucius Charinus]

Thanks for the info neilgodfrey. Are you waiting for an English translation or can you read Italian?

Here is part of a review ....

Ascensio Isaiae. Textus by Paolo Bettiolo; Alda Giambelluca Kossova; Claudio Leonardi; Enrico Norelli; Lorenzo Perrone;
Ascensio Isaiae. Commentarius by Enrico Norelli
Review by: A. Hilhorst Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2000), pp. 111-114
Published by: BRILL
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1584713 .

• The Ascension of Isaiah shares the features typical of so many apocryphal writings. Its author is unknown, its date is under dispute, it has come down to us in many languages, completely or in fragments, the original language is controversial and, last but not least, opinions are divided as to the reli- gious milieu in which it originated: was it Jewish or Christian?T he work does not suffer from a lack of editions and translations, but a compre- hensive treatment of the material now at our disposal has been wanting. How should one tackle the task of presenting it? Admittedly, the best pro- cedure would be for a single scholar combining the qualities of a philolo- gist and a polyglot to work on it. Since, however, that sort is scarce, in the volumes under review the second best solution of teamwork has been chosen. Work was begun in 1978 on the initiative of Professor Mauro Pesce of Bologna (I p. v), the team's composition underwent some changes in the course of time, interim results appeared in print, and now we have the final work before us. As is usual with the Series Apocryphorum, there are two volumes; the former one presents the texts with their translations, the latter offers a commentary and the indexes. The project was super- vised by Enrico Norelli, who wrote the Acknowledgement and Preface to the first volume, made a number of contributions to it and composed the commentary in volume two. All of the contributions except the edition and the synopsis are in Italian, the native language, we may suppose, of all but one of the contributors. Let us have a look at each of the volumes.
  
  
  The first volume contains critical editions with introductions and facing translations of the Ascension of Isaiah in Ethiopic (text Perrone, translation Norelli), Greek (Norelli), Coptic (Bettiolo), Latin (Leonardi), Old Bulgarian (Giambelluca Kossova) and of the Greek Legend of Isaiah (Norelli). A Latin synopsis by Norelli of all of the texts except the Legend concludes the vol- ume. If we compare the new edition with the one by R.H. Charles, London 1900, we find, first of all, that it uses a number of hitherto unknown wit- nesses to the text. For the Ethiopic (Ge'ez) version, the only one to offer a complete text, nine manuscripts have been used (Charles: three). The Slavonic version, which comprises chs. 6-11, has been made from seven manuscripts (the translation by G.N. Bonwetsch in Charles was based on two). The Coptic fragments, which were still unknown to Charles and were publishedb y L.Th. Lefort and P. Lacau, have been revised using the papers of Lacau. The Latin texts, fragments of Vat.L at. 5750 from chs. 2-3 and 7-8 and a translation of chs. 6-11 extant in an edition from 1522 have been collated afresh. The Greek papyrus texts originally edited by Grenfell and Hunt could be improved in some instances. Finally, the Greek Legend, a Byzantine text rewriting the Ascension (BHG 958; CANT 316), could be edited on the basis of two manuscripts (up to now, only one was known). As far as this reviewer is able to judge, the editions have been prepared with great competence. No uniformity has been reached in the style of the critical apparatuses; this is the price one has to pay for the collaborating of scholars working in different fields. The translations are provided with an apparatus of biblical quotations and allusions and with footnotes deal- ing with textual criticism. The synopsis, in which all of the texts appear in Latin, is a most welcome addition to this volume. It should be borne in mind, however, that the texts of the Latin versions in it are not iden- tical with those of the edition, earlier in the book, by Leonardi (the latter introducing emendations, whereas the synopsis offers the text of the wit- nesses). A further particularity is the use of )O;, oxt, xC)v, Tov etc. in the rendition of the Greek, Slavonic, and Ethiopic versions, to achieve a pre- cision which Latin is unable to express. This was inspired by the transla- tion, made as long ago as 1877, by August Dillmann (cf. I p. xii). It is a pity that in the synopsis the running heads are not used to indicate the chap- ter numbers. Since each chapter takes several pages, one often has to turn one or more of them to find the chapter number.
  
  The editors expressly reject the idea of reconstructing a supposedly original text (cf. I p. ix). One can only applaud their decision, for the result could be no more than an artificial text which never was in circulation. It belongs to the essence of apocryphal texts that they circulated in ever changing forms.
  
  (my bolding)

Does anyone think that the reviewer would say the same thing about the canonical texts, namely ........ "that they circulated in ever changing forms"?

Surely many of the apocryphal texts have an original Greek form? Certainly the centuries of preservation have introduced an amazing variety of variant (canonical and non canonical) texts. But it seems to me that scholarship is happy to postulate an original form to the Greek canonical texts but is then capable of denying the existence of any "original form" to the state of the Ascension of Isaiah as has survived BECAUSE it appears on the surface to be a composite text. What if the author of the text originally intended to write a composite text?

Is the NHC "Sophia of Jesus Christ" a composite text, for example? Eugnostos ("Right Thinking"), the Blessed: NHC 3.3 --> NHC 5.1 --> NHC 3.4 "The Sophia of Jesus Christ".



LC

[Leucius Charinus]

A New (Completely Revised) Look at the Ascension of Isaiah
http://vridar.org/2015/01/08/a-new-comp ... of-isaiah/

• Here are the highlights:
  
  •The work is not nearly so fragmented as earlier studies have believed. Both the first part, chapters 1 to 5, depicting the martyrdom of Isaiah, and the second part, chapters 6 to 11, portraying Isaiah’s vision of the descent of the Christ figure (the Beloved) down through the seven heavens to be crucified, harrow hell and return to sit beside God again, are Christian works.
  
  •The Christian sect responsible for the AoI (all of it) was exalted revelations through visions and saw themselves competing with rival sects, each blaming and persecuting the other as false prophets.
  
  •The account of the birth of the Beloved to Mary in Bethlehem is not a late addition but was original to the vision chapters (6-11). That means The Beloved did indeed descend to earth and was crucified on earth — unrecognized by the demons.
  
  •The details of the nativity scene draw on a source also known to the evangelist responsible for the Gospel of Matthew. The AoI does not know the canonical gospel but both are using a common source. The two nativity versions — Matthew’s and the AoI’s — represent competing theologies. That is, the AoI was (and several reasons are given for this conclusion) written around the same time or environment that produced the Gospel of Matthew.
  
  •The reason for the Beloved appearing to be flesh and dying was to save humanity by means of conquering their demonic rulers.

So the original form of the AoI is not a tripartite composite work (scattered over three centuries) at all, but instead is a single "Early Christian work" with the emphasis on "Early". I'd be interested in the several reasons Norelli thinks that the AoI was written "about the same time" as Matthew.

What is it in modern scholarship (besides "peer pressure") that continually seeks very early (1st century) dates for the books of the heretics first attested by identities in the 4th century?

P.S. If anyone capable is interested in translating the [French ???] chapter let me know in case I am able to forward a copy of the chapter.

LC

[neilgodfrey]

Thanks for the info neilgodfrey. Are you waiting for an English translation or can you read Italian?

I missed this earlier. I can't read Italian and I would not expect an English translation of the commentaries or the 600 page supplementary essays by Norelli to appear for a very long time, unfortunately. (Still waiting for Bruno Bauer's pioneering works from 1841 to be translated into English!)

[Leucius Charinus]

(Still waiting for Bruno Bauer's pioneering works from 1841 to be translated into English!)

That would make an interesting read for sure.

Back to the OP.
Attention historicists!
As far as I can tell the latest scholarship on the AoI seems to allow an HJ back in the Earth door.

• •The account of the birth of the Beloved to Mary in Bethlehem is not a late addition but was original to the vision chapters (6-11).
  That means The Beloved did indeed descend to earth and was crucified on earth — unrecognized by the demons.

Would be interesting to read Doherty's or Carrier's response to this latest AoI scholarship.




LC

[Leucius Charinus]

A New (Completely Revised) Look at the Ascension of Isaiah
http://vridar.org/2015/01/08/a-new-comp ... of-isaiah/

• •The account of the birth of the Beloved to Mary in Bethlehem is not a late addition but was original to the vision chapters (6-11). That means The Beloved did indeed descend to earth and was crucified on earth — unrecognized by the demons.

Am I mistaken here? Doesn't this interpretation of AoI - Jesus descends all the way to Earth (in disguise?) - represent evidence against the Carrier/Doherty interpretation of this text as an "Outer Space" Jesus - who did not descend to Earth.



LC