Ascension of Isaiah revisited

[Bernard Muller]

I just made some revision on my most recent blog page on the ascension of Isaiah http://historical-jesus.info/100.html. My study is based on the research of R.H. Charles (a long time ago) and I hope it is not crucially out of date (if it is, tell me).
I cannot put the whole text on this thread (too long and too much formatting) but I will give here some excerpts in order to get you interested. But a warning: my conclusion will look rather radical. I did not aim for that: it just happened.

Excerpt 1 (graphic by R.H. Charles):


Excerpt 2 (written today):
My note: I strongly suspect the following verses [11:] 23 to 35 were not in the original vision of Isaiah, but were added later by a Christian hand. My main reason is the dead souls that the beloved would have liberated from Sheol are not with him during the ascent, as in the Christian versions of Christ's ascension (without souls of the dead). So the original text most likely did not have the Beloved changing in human form, living on earth, being crucified and then ascending back to heaven.
Here the main objection on the last point would be: why describe only the Beloved's descent from heaven, with the purpose of liberating souls of the dead from Sheol?
I don't think it was necessary to go further: the main obstacle was to proceed through the layers of heaven without being intercepted, which the Beloved is described to have done successfully. After that, the angel of death would be easily vanquished and somehow the ascent of the beloved (with his liberated souls) would be as easy as the descent.
The text was just meant to give hope, that God, through his Beloved, and despite their isolation in the highest heaven because of the hostility of angels & Satan in the lower heavens, would take action in order to save dead Jews.

So when the original vision of Isaiah would have been written? Logically, right after many Jews died, that is in the first Jewish war.

Note: I have another argument not written yet on my blog page, against the ascent of the beloved being original: the author who wrote about the descent "needed" Isaiah to be with the Beloved in the highest heaven and then during his descent (to act as a witness). But during the ascent of the Beloved, Isaiah is on earth and still is able to describe the ascent of that Beloved and the welcome in the highest heaven!
Another argument: the Beloved is welcome back as glorious among the bad angels of the firmament. Why? The Beloved has not the proof of his glory with him, that is his liberated souls. The glory might be from the sacrifice for atonement of sins, but this is never stated in AoI. However it may be what the interpolator was thinking about.

Excerpt 3 (modified today):
My conclusion:
It seems the original text was entirely Jewish and then slightly interpolated (at 9:13-14 & 16, 10:13 and 11:23-35) by a Docetic Christian. Then two interpolators (Docetic Christians themselves), separately, on two distinct copies, added more (different) additions/insertions of their own, some of them overtly Christian in nature. These two resulting copies (witnessed by E & L1 and S & L2) may have been furthermore interpolated when new ones were made from them.

The original text, even after being added on with its first Christian-like interpolations, did not have "Son", "first-begotten", "Jesus" or "Christ" in it.

Therefore, the ascent of Isaiah and descent were not originally Christian. But later, probably in the 2nd century, when Docetism was adopted among some Gnostic Christians, the original Jewish text got manipulated in order to serve the Christian cause.

Cordially, Bernard

[Ben C. Smith]

I just made some revision on my most recent blog page on the ascension of Isaiah http://historical-jesus.info/100.html. My study is based on the research of R.H. Charles (a long time ago) and I hope it is not crucially out of date (if it is, tell me).
I cannot put the whole text on this thread (too long and too much formatting) but I will give here some excerpts in order to get you interested. But a warning: my conclusion will look rather radical. I did not aim for that: it just happened.

Thanks, Bernard.

Your reconstruction retains the following from 10.8, it appears: "Go forth and descent through all the heavens, and thou wilt descent to the firmament and that world: to the angel in Sheol thou wilt descend."

Later on your reconstruction renders 10.30-11.38 as follows: "And I saw when He descended unto the angels of the air, and He was like one of them. And He gave no password; for one was plundering and doing violence to another. After this the angel said unto me: 'Understand, Isaiah son of Amoz; for this purpose have I been sent from God.' These things Isaiah saw and told unto all that stood before him, and they praised. And he spake to Hezekiah the King, 'I have spoken these things.' Both the end of this world and all this vision will be consummated in the last generations."

So at the crucial moment no angel of Sheol is described, no wresting of the dead from his grasp, no ascent with the dead back into the heavens. So what do you think is happening here? Is there something missing? Or is the author relying on the earlier predictions to fill in the gaps?

Ben.

[Bernard Muller]

Thank you Ben for your comments.

So at the crucial moment no angel of Sheol is described, no wresting of the dead from his grasp, no ascent with the dead back into the heavens. So what do you think is happening here? Is there something missing? Or is the author relying on the earlier predictions to fill in the gaps?

No, I do not think there was anything missing.

Or is the author relying on the earlier predictions to fill in the gaps?

Yes that's it.
This is what I wrote on my webpage:
I strongly suspect the following verses 23 to 35 were not in the original vision of Isaiah, but were added later by a Christian hand.
My main reason is the dead souls that the beloved would have liberated from Sheol are not with him during the ascent, as in the Christian versions of Christ's ascension (without souls of the dead).
Another reason: the author who wrote about the descent "needed" Isaiah to be with the Beloved in the highest heaven and then during his descent (to act as a witness). But during the ascent of the Beloved, Isaiah is on earth and still is able to describe the ascent of that Beloved and the welcome in the highest heaven!
Still another reason: the Beloved is welcome back as glorious among the bad angels of the firmament. Why? The Beloved has not the proof of his glory with him, that is his liberated souls. The glory might be from the sacrifice for atonement of sins, but this is never stated in AoI. However it may be what the interpolator was thinking about.
So the original text most likely did not have the Beloved changing in human form, living on earth for a long time, being crucified and then ascending back to heaven.
Here the main objection on the last point would be: why describe only the Beloved's descent from heaven, with the purpose of liberating souls of the dead from Sheol?
I don't think it was necessary to go further: the main obstacle was to proceed through the layers of heaven without being intercepted, which the Beloved is described to have done successfully. After that, the angel of death would be easily vanquished and somehow the ascent of the beloved (with his liberated souls) would be as easy as the descent.
The text was just meant to give hope, that God, through his Beloved, and despite their isolation in the highest heaven because of the hostility of angels & Satan in the lower heavens, would take action in order to save dead Jews.
So when the original vision of Isaiah would have been written? Logically, right after many Jews died, that is in the first Jewish war.

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

At Vridar.org -

In this post and the next I am going to discuss the possibility that Simon/Paul derived his gospel initially from the Vision of Isaiah and that in its original form it possessed a Son of God who descended to Judaea for only a few hours. I suspect the Vision depicted a Son who, having repeatedly transfigured himself to descend undetected through the lower heavens, transfigured himself again upon arrival on earth so as to look like a man. Then, by means of yet another transfiguration, he surreptitiously switched places with a Jewish rebel who was being led away for crucifixion. All this was done by the Son in order to trick the rulers of this world into wrongfully killing him.
.
Preliminaries

The Ascension of Isaiah is a composite work made up of at least two parts.

• The first, which consists of chapters 1-5, is usually referred to as the Martyrdom of Isaiah.
• The second, the Vision of Isaiah, consists of the remaining chapters and is known to have circulated independently.

The Martyrdom section itself is, in the opinion of many scholars, a composite work. It is thought that its oldest element (the story of Isaiah’s murder) is Jewish and that 3:13-4:22 is a Christian addition to it. Whoever made the insertion, however, did so with an awareness of the Vision, for “3:13 clearly alludes to chapters 6-11, and there are also a number of other links between 3:13-4:22 and the Vision” (M.A. Knibb, “Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah: A New Translation and Introduction,” in 'The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha', edited by J.H. Charlesworth, p. 148). Finally, besides these three larger sections there are some short passages that may be the redactional work of the final editor who put the Ascension together.

• 

  ascisaiah2-e1388482828110-792x1024.jpg (27.16 KiB) Viewed 3550 times

Chronologically the Jewish source of the Martyrdom would be the earliest component of the Ascension, and may go back “ultimately to the period of the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes in 167-164 BC.” (Knibb. P. 149).

The latest component would be the 3:13-4:22 interpolation and, if it is also the work of the final redactor, probably dates sometime from the end of first century CE to the first decades of the second.

1/3 http://vridar.org/2013/12/31/a-simonian ... -gospel-2/

2/3 - http://vridar.org/2014/01/27/a-simonian ... continued/

3/3 - http://vridar.org/2014/02/25/a-simonian ... onclusion/

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[Giuseppe]

Another reason: the author who wrote about the descent "needed" Isaiah to be with the Beloved in the highest heaven and then during his descent (to act as a witness). But during the ascent of the Beloved, Isaiah is on earth and still is able to describe the ascent of that Beloved and the welcome in the highest heaven!

Ignoring fo the moment the fact that Isaiah could well ''see'' in a vision the descent (without having to descend phisically down with the Beloved), if I understand well your view, you are saying that the writer is not ascending to heaven when he is writing about the ''realized'' prophecy and therefore this would be a contradiction, meaning that he is a Christian insofar the victory of the Beloved is only celestial and invisible to eyes (while this world there is still). Is that your view? Thanks for any correction.

Still another reason: the Beloved is welcome back as glorious among the bad angels of the firmament. Why? The Beloved has not the proof of his glory with him

It is easy to reply: an archangel is glorious by definition, without need of other proof as the show of freed souls of dead.

[Bernard Muller]

to Giuseppe,

Ignoring for the moment the fact that Isaiah could well ''see'' in a vision the descent (without having to descend physically down with the Beloved),

Yes, Isaiah's body is on earth when having the vision of his ascent, but his mind ascends to 7th heaven and then accompanies the Beloved in his descent. However, during the ascent of the Beloved, there is no mention the mind of Isaiah accompanies back the Beloved. There is a small problem here: if the original author felt he had to have Isaiah' s mind going to 7th heaven and then back down with the Beloved, to act as a close witness, why the same author (if he is the one who wrote about the ascent of the Beloved) did not have Isaiah's mind accompanying the Beloved in order to report on the ascent and the welcome in 7th heaven?
But this is a minor argument. The main argument is the Beloved is supposed to bring back with him the souls of the dead (9:16-18), but this is not reported in the ascent of the Beloved. There is a big discontinuity here.

the victory of the Beloved

Any victory of the Beloved is not explained when that Beloved goes back to the 7th heaven. But with 9:14 written at the same time, that would be related to the crucifixion of the Beloved. However, being crucified is not a victory, rather the opposite. So from where the Beloved became glorious and worshipped in the lower heavens and even the firmament, without having the dead's souls with him? Because the Christian author/interpolator of the ascent of the Beloved knew about the sacrifice on the cross for atonement of sins. Anyway, that's what I think.

It is easy to reply: an archangel is glorious by definition, without need of other proof as the show of freed souls of dead.

If an archangel is glorious by definition, why would the original author had the Beloved taking disguise in each heavens and the air, when going down? Why not stay an archangel and then go down through the heavens, being worshipped as a glorious archangel?

Cordially, Bernard

[Ben C. Smith]

to Giuseppe,

Ignoring for the moment the fact that Isaiah could well ''see'' in a vision the descent (without having to descend physically down with the Beloved),

Yes, Isaiah's body is on earth when having the vision of his ascent, but his mind ascends to 7th heaven and then accompanies the Beloved in his descent.

Where are you getting that Isaiah's mind accompanies the descent? Is it from 10.18? "And the angel who conducted me said unto me: 'Understand, Isaiah, and see the transformation and descent of the Lord will appear."

[Bernard Muller]

to Ben,

Where are you getting that Isaiah's mind accompanies the descent? Is it from 10.18? "And the angel who conducted me said unto me: 'Understand, Isaiah, and see the transformation and descent of the Lord will appear."

I think you are right. The vision of Isaiah does not say Isaiah accompanies the Beloved in his descent from 7th heaven.
And it would be hard to argue the opposite in view the ascent of Isaiah appears to happen in Isaiah's present (but is it? see below), but the descent (and ascent) of the Beloved is supposed to happen in the first century AD, way after Isaiah's lifetime. So these two visions are about Isaiah's mind seeing future events which would occur many centuries later: 11:37-38 "Both the end of this world; And all this vision will be consummated in the last generations.".
Actually, according to 11:37-38, the ascent of Isaiah might also be in this far away future, but that Isaiah's mind would see well before.
Very complicated and I don't think the author though about all these implications. He was not writing a novel, only some religious crap.
But I'll scrap my (secondary) argument.

Cordially, Bernard

[Ben C. Smith]

to Ben,

Where are you getting that Isaiah's mind accompanies the descent? Is it from 10.18? "And the angel who conducted me said unto me: 'Understand, Isaiah, and see the transformation and descent of the Lord will appear."

I think you are right. The vision of Isaiah does not say Isaiah accompanies the Beloved in his descent from 7th heaven.
And it would be hard to argue the opposite in view the ascent of Isaiah appears to happen in Isaiah's present (but is it? see below), but the descent (and ascent) of the Beloved is supposed to happen in the first century AD, way after Isaiah's lifetime. So these two visions are about Isaiah's mind seeing future events which would occur many centuries later: 11:37-38 "Both the end of this world; And all this vision will be consummated in the last generations.".
Actually, according to 11:37-38, the ascent of Isaiah might also be in this far away future, but that Isaiah's mind would see well before.
Very complicated and I don't think the author though about all these implications. He was not writing a novel, only some religious crap.
But I'll scrap my (secondary) argument.

For whatever it may be worth, I think your primary argument (about the righteous accompanying the ascending Beloved... or not) has legs. Definitely something to consider.