Carrier on the Ascension of Isaiah,
Part2
"Key to understanding this text is the evidence that it's been tampered with. Even apart from the manuscript evidence confirming this, the text itself confirms it. In the first part we're told that high above in the firmament of this world there are copies of all the things on earth, and there the 'rulers of this world' fight over who will control the earth below. As I'll demonstrate in Chapter 5 (Elements 34-38) this was a popular belief, and one accepted by Paul and the author of the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews—both in the New Testament. And with this in mind God commands his Son (here a preexistent divine being called Lord Christ, and soon to be dubbed Lord Jesus Christ) to descend 'to the firmament and to that world, even to the angel in the realm of the dead' (10.8) and to take 'the form of the angels of the firmament and the angels also who are in the realm of the dead' (10.10) so 'none of the angels of this world shall know' who he is (10.11), and thus (Isaiah's guiding angel explains) 'they will think that he is flesh and a man' (9.13, a line not present in all versions, see below), in a 'form' like Isaiah's (8.26, likewise not present in all versions), and then 'the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will lay hands on him and crucify him on a tree, without knowing who he is' (9.14). And then 'he will arise on the third day and will remain in that world' for one and a half years (9.16)—thus fulfilling the predictions of Daniel (see Chapter 4, Element 7). although in no way conforming to any account in the New Testament (even in Acts 1.3 Jesus sticks around after his resurrection barely more than a month).
4 Indeed, that Jesus hung around after his resurrection for a whole year and a half would have sounded patently absurd even then, begging the question: what is really being said here?
"Notice that up to this point in the story nothing is ever said about Jesus visiting earth or being killed by Jews or Romans—or conducting a ministry for that matter (of any sort at all).
5 The 'they' who will think he is a man and not know who he is and kill him are only ever said to be Satan and his angels. No other subject is mentioned for that pronoun, nor is any other implied. God clearly intends Jesus to do nothing more than go to the firmament, and for no other reason than to be killed by Satan and his sky demons, then rise from the dead and conduct affairs there for over a year (doing what, it's not said), and then ascend to heaven. In other words, instead of conducting a ministry on earth, Jesus is commanded to go straight to the firmament and die, and rise from the dead, and then remain where he had died for a year and a half (9.16; cf. 10.12-14; although the duration is omitted from some versions), and then ascend to the heavens. The 'tree' on which he is crucified (9.14) is thus implied to be one of the 'copies' of trees that we're told are in the firmament (7.10).
6 Certainly no mention is made here of this happening in or anywhere near Jerusalem.
"Likewise, it's only said 'none of the angels of this world shall know' who he is (10.11), not 'none of the Jews' or 'none of the authorities in Israel' or any such thing (which is essentially just what Paul himself says in 1 Cor. 2.6-10). The text also does not identify any further stage of descending from the firmament to earth before entering the realm of the dead (not even in chap. 11—the redactors made no effort to connect their later insertion of a completely out-of-place 'gospel' narrative to the sequential 'descent-by-stages' storyline of the previous chapters). In 10.30 it's implied Jesus descends to a lower part of the firmament (where he finds he needs no password to get in), but he is still then among 'the angels of the air'. He goes no further. Back in 10.8 it was said he shall descend 'even to the angel in the realm of the dead' (though specifically not to Hell), but as we'll see in Chapter 5 (e.g. in Plutarch's account in
On the Face That Appears in the Orb of the Moon), many theologians of this period regarded the 'realm of the dead' to be up in the sky, not in an underworld (see Chapter 5: Element 37), and there is no indication here that anything else was meant.
"In fact, of his killers God specifically says, '
they will not know that you are mine until
with the voice of Heaven I have summoned
their angels and their lights, and my mighty voice is made to resound to the sixth heaven' (10.12). in other words the truth will be revealed to Christ's murderers by God's resounding voice that will be heard across all the seven levels of heaven, which of course is not what happens in the New Testament Gospels (no divine voice is heard across the world revealing Jesus's true identity, least of all to those who killed him), yet here 'they' become aware of who he is almost right away (11.23). What can only be meant here are the demons and demon princes who kill him in the firmament (as 11.23 says), since they are the only ones who can be expected to hear this voice, along with 'their angels and lights', their subordinates (since men don't have 'angels and lights' under them to summon). Nor did the killers of Jesus ever 'know' Jesus was a divine being, yet here we are told they did: once God told them. This cannot mean the Jews and Romans. It can only mean Satan and his angelic princes. Therefore, 10.12 clearly says
those are his killers, not the humans interpolated into the story in chap. 11. At any rate, before the final chapter, no one else but these demons is ever mentioned as being at all involved in this event, and no mention is ever made of Jesus going anywhere else but to the firmament to die.
"Only in the final chapter is the story suddenly changed and elaborated with all manner of details that are never even a component of God's original orders (as described in chap. 10), nor in the angel's account of God's plan to Isaiah (in chap. 9), nor even plausibly concordant with them—both in terms of plot
and literary style, 11.2-22 clearly do not derive from the same author as the rest of chaps. 6 through 11 (as many experts conclude). That this is confirmed in manuscript evidence only makes it all the more conclusive. This eleventh chapter thus appears to have been redacted to "include" a complete earthly 'gospel' story, as if it were what was being referred to in chaps. 9 and 10, when that hardly makes sense—the two accounts don't fit each other at all.
"In line with this, two other key phrases also appear to have been interpolated: 'they will think that he is flesh and a man' (9.13) and he shall 'descend in your form' (8.26) are both missing from the Latin version. Although the Latin text is frequently abbreviated, that is unlikely to explain the coincidental omission of these specific phrases, the
only statements outside the pocket gospel that refer to Jesus becoming like a man. Nevertheless, those statements would still be compatible with a celestial event (as human sorcerers could fly into the air and be met with there, and earliest Christian belief certainly held that Jesus had assumed the form of a man), so we needn't rule them out.
"But if we conclude that the original text of the
Ascension of Isaiah did not include most of the material currently found in chap. 11, but that the original text ended instead in a manner consistent with what is said in chaps. 9 and 10 (and indeed the repetitive nature of the text up to that point entails we should expect the conclusion to conform closely and repetitively to what chaps. 9 and 10 say will happen), then we should first look to the manuscripts that omit this pocket gospel to see if there are any clues to what originally was there. This is what we see (translating from the Latin text):
[11.1] After this, the angel said to me. "Understand. Isaiah, son of Amoz. because for this purpose have I been sent from God. that everything be revealed to you. For before you no one ever saw. nor after you will anyone be able to see. what you have seen and heard'. [11.2] And I saw one like a son of man, dwelling among men, and in the world, and they did not know him. |11.23] And I saw him ascend into the firmament but he did not change himself into another form, and all the angels above the firmament saw him. and they worshipped him.
"This new version of 11.2 describes a kind of earthly sojourn, but in an absurdly brief fashion. This actually looks like a rewrite of the Jewish scripture of Bar. 3.38, where God himself was 'seen on earth and conversed with men', which would sooner suggest a revelatory experience was going to be described. Hence it's notable how this
Ascension text transforms Baruch: it does not have Jesus
converse with men or
seen by men. but has him only
among men yet
completely unknown to them. Ascension Isaiah 11.2 also rewrites Dan. 7.13, saying that what Isaiah saw was 'one like a son of man; the one who in Daniel appears among the clouds and will receive an eternal kingdom over the whole universe (Dan. 7.14).
Part3 follows ...