Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Post Reply
dbz
Posts: 510
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:48 am

Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by dbz »

Per "How Scholars Know Jesus Lived - Dr. M. David Litwa". YouTube. History Valley. 22 February 2022.

Carrier responds "M. David Litwa is Wrong About The Ascension Of Isaiah w/ Dr. Carrier". YouTube. Godless Engineer. 15 October 2022.
Litwa literally doesn’t know anything he is talking about. Yet he arrogantly—and dishonestly—represents himself as a studied expert. This is shameful and immoral—and extremely angering. He doesn’t even know what Enrico Norelli argued, or my rebuttals to it, despite complaining that one ought to know those things; he lies about my not referencing Norelli or responding to his arguments; he doesn’t know what my thesis is, or anything I argue or documented under peer review about this subject; he has completely garbled and amateur notions about the Ascension of Isaiah as a text; he has completely incorrect notions of how Mythicists see and employ this text; he doesn’t know anything about ancient cosmology, yet pretends to, and in result, lies about it; and he doesn’t know any of the arguments by multiple scholars (including myself) across the peer-reviewed literature, or any of the evidence they rest on, as to why most of us reject Norelli’s fanciful conjectures about this text. I don’t think Litwa even knows what Norelli’s arguments are. He certainly doesn’t know anyone else’s. Scholars ought to be moral and honorable, and skilled and competent, and therefore well know that they should not weigh in on things they know they have not studied, much less make confident assertions about them. As just one more example of countless, this illustrates, yet again, a pervasive lack of ethics, and of epistemic standards, in Jesus studies.

Carrier (16 October 2022). "M. David Litwa, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Problem of Incompetent Scholarship". Richard Carrier Blogs.


dbz
Posts: 510
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:48 am

Re: Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by dbz »

Charles, Robert Henry (1900). 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. A. & C. Black. pp. xxv–xxvi. "I have already shown (p. xxi) that S is made from the same Greek text as L2, i.e. G2. It is, however, more faithful and full than L2. Thus where L2 omits words, phrases, or even whole sentences . . . the lacunae are supplied by S in agreement with E. Thus these passages that are lost in L2 go back to the archetype G."

Per Charles (1900). The Ascension of Isaiah. p.133:
[L2: XI.15]
[…]
Et vidi similem filii hominis,
et cum hominibus habitare et in mundo,
N.B. in comparison per così L2 ; trascurabili le varianti di S
[S: XI.20]
[…]
Et ecce vidi similem * ut filium hominis;
et cum hominibus * cum habitasset in mundo
Norelli writes that “Et vidi similem filii hominis…” depends on three verses in the New Testament.

Norelli, Enrico (1995). Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius (in Italian). Corpus Christianorum. Series Apocryphorum (CCSA 8). Turnhout: Brepols. p. 536:
Ora, a me pare che l’intero periodo
et vidi similem filii hominis et cum hominibus habitare et in mundo, et non cognoverunt eum
(così L2 ; trascurabili le varianti di S) dipenda in realtà da tre versetti neotestamentari…
Last edited by dbz on Sat Oct 29, 2022 6:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
dbz
Posts: 510
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:48 am

Re: Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by dbz »

But from the recognition that 11:2 of the L2/S branch is a sanitized substitute, it does not necessarily follow that 11:2-22 in the Ethiopic versions is authentic. That passage too is rejected by some (e.g., R. Laurence, F.C. Burkitt). And although most are inclined to accept it as original, they base that inclination on the primitive character of its birth narrative. Thus, for example, Knibb says “the primitive character of the narrative of the birth of Jesus suggests very strongly that the Eth[iopic version] has preserved the original form of the text” (“Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah: A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by J.H. Charlesworth, p. 150).

Roger Parvus ap. Godfrey (29 October 2018). “Crucified on Earth? — What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?“. Vridar.


This post will look at the place in the Vision that contains the major difference between the two branches of its textual tradition. Obviously, at least one of the readings is not authentic. But, as I will show, there are good reasons to think that neither reading was part of the original.

The passages in question are located in chapter 11 of the Vision. In the L2 and S versions the Lord’s mission in the world is presented by a single sentence:
2… And I saw one like a son of man, and he dwelt with men in the world, and they did not recognize him.
In place of this the Ethiopic versions have 21 verses, 17 of which are devoted to a miraculous birth story:
2 And I saw a woman of the family of David the prophet whose name (was) Mary, and she (was) a virgin and was betrothed to a man whose name (was) Joseph, a carpenter, and he also (was) of the seed and family of the righteous David of Bethlehem in Judah....

Roger Parvus (27 January 2014). “A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 8: The Source of Simon/Paul’s Gospel (continued)“. Vridar.

dbz
Posts: 510
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:48 am

Re: Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by dbz »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 3:59 pm Here is Norelli's excursus on why he thinks the "pocket gospel" belongs to the original text of AI.

I'll leave it for interested persons who don't read Italian to run it through a translator.

L = Latin manuscript; S = Slavonic; G = Greek: E = Ethiopic; Leg = Greek Legend

Excursus X : Il carattere originario di AI 11,2-22

Tutto ciò vale naturalmente se si ammette il carattere
originario dei v. 2-22. Ma già la struttura del passo induce
ad ammetterlo. Infatti la solenne dichiarazione dell'angelo,
presente sia in E che in SL2, secondo cui proprio per questo
è stato inviato da Dio, mal si giustifica nella situazione di
SL2, dove essa compare tra il descensus e I'ascensus del
Diletto, e introduce solo due scolorite frasi sulla dimora del
Diletto nel mondo in forma umana, seguite dalle notizie
sulla sua ascensione nel firmamento, senza che si sappia né
da dove né come vi é arrivato. La forma letteraria di 11,1,
così pregnante nel suo riferimento a una speciale rivela-
zione, appare dunque sproporzionata a ciò che la segue in
SL2.

Esaminiamo le frasi che in SL2 stanno al posto dei v. 2-22
di E. «Né infatti prima di te alcuno vide, né dopo di te
potrà vedere ciò che tu hai visto e udito~~ ripete - come
CHARLES, p. XXIV, aveva visto- 8, 11, dove però questa
forma s'inserisce molto meglio sia nel contesto immediato
che in quello largo. <<Vidi uno simile a un figlio d'uomo>~
secondo CHARLES, p. XXVI-XXVII e p. L, sarebbe stato
originario; l'avrebbe eliminato l'editore di G1 (capostipite
perduto della recensione di AI 6-11 conservata in ELI) in
quanto, dalla fine del I secolo, se ne evitò l'uso come titolo
messianico perché induceva a supporre l'esclusiva umanità
di Cristo, laddove il redattore di G1 mostra, al contrario,
tracce di docetismo. Il testo originario di 6-11 avrebbe con-
tenuto, secondo CHARLES, p. XXVI, anche la successiva
espressione cum hominibus habitare (cito L2), che si trova in
Leg 2,11 ό μέλλων καταβαίνειν εκ των ουρανών καί τοΐς άν-
θρώποις σνναναστρέφεσθαι κατά τάς ήμετέρας είδέας (1).

(1) Ricordo che, secondo Charles, Leg dipenderebbe dalla recensione di 6-11 anteriore alla differenziazione tra G1, subarchetipo di EL1, e G2, subarchetipo di SL2.

La successiva frase et non cognoverunl eum (cito L2) viene messa
da Charles in parallelo con il v. 19 E (<<non sapendo essi chi
era>~); egli si richiama a 9,14 che conterrebbe la stessa idea
(p. xxiv). Questa frase sembra effettivamente riassumere il
motivo dell'ignoranza umana nei confronti del Diletto nel
mondo, così largamente orchestrata in 11,2-22 E, a conti-
nuazione dell'ignoranza angelica manifestatasi nel descensus
attraverso i cinque cieli inferiori.

Ora, a me pare che l'intero periodo et vidi similem filii
hominis et cum hominibus habitare et in mundo, et non cogno-
verunt eum (così L2 ; trascurabili le varianti di S) dipenda in
realtà da tre versetti neotestamentari: Ap 1,12-13 είδον επτά
λυχνίας χρυσός καί εν μέσω των λυχνιών δμοιον υιόν άν-
θρώπου(cf. Ap 14,14; il motivo viene da Dn 7,13; Ez 1,26);
Gv l, 14 καί ό λόγος σαρξ έγένετο καί εσκήνωσεν εν ήμϊν
(Vulg. et habitavit in nobis); Gv 1,10 εν τώ κόσμω ήν ... καί ό
κόσμος αυτόν οΰκ εγνω (Vulg. in mundo erat ... el mundus
eum non cognovit).

Quanto al σνναναστρέφεσθαι suggerito da Charles, sulla
base di Leg 2,11, come corrispondente di habilare, il termine
compare nel NT solo in una variante occidentale ad Al
10,41 (circa i discepoli che vivono con Gesù 40 giorni dopo
la sua resurrezione). A partire dalla fine del II sec. - inizio
del III diventa un termine tecnico per indicare: (1) la vita
di Cristo con gli apostoli o degli apostoli con Cristo dopo la
sua resurrezione; e soprattutto (2) la vita di Cristo sulla
terra come uomo tra gli uomini, come qui in Al-Leg (1).Ma
il testo fondamentale è Bar 3,38 LXX μετά τούτο επί τής
γης ώφθη καί εν τοϊς άνθρώποις συνανεστράφη, riferito in
origine alla sapienza e che è probabilmente alla base di una
presumibile interpolazione cristiana in Tesi. Dan 5,13 κύριος
εσται εν μέσω αυτής ( = di Gerusalemme), τοΐς άνθρω
ποις συναναστρεφόμένος, και άγιος Ισραήλ βασιλεύων επ’
αυτούς εν ταπεινώσει και εν πτωχεία. Leg potrebbe aver
ripreso questo uso, divenuto corrente, mentre in AI a deri-
vazione chiaramente giovannea del contesto rende preferì-
bile ricondurre <<abitare•> a Gv 1,14 εσκήνωσεν; Leg 2,11,
che non corrisponde ad alcun episodio di AI, è un inter-
vento largamente redazionale che, mentre sembra ripren-
dere lessico e motivi di A l (2), in realtà utilizza una fraseo-
logia piuttosto neotestamentaria e teologumeni estranei ad
AI (il Diletto καταβαλεΐ εκ τοϋ στερεώματος τούτον Beliar,
in contrasto con AI 4,2.14; cf. invece Le 10,18; Gu 12,31;
Ap 12,7-9). Il tema del non riconoscimento di Gesù, impor-
tante in 11,2-22, può aver catalizzato questi testi del pro-
logo giovanneo.

(1) Per i riferimenti cf. Lampe s.v. (p. 1301) ; noterei inoltre Ireneo, Dem. 44: «le Fils de Dieu s’approcha d’Abraham pour l’entretenir»; ibid.: «le Fils de Dieu dans une forme humaine s’entretiendrait avec les hommes»; 45 ; « toutes les visions de ce genre signifient le Fils de Dieu conversant avec les hommes et présent parmi eux » ; 46 : « c’est lui qui, dans le buisson, s’entretint avec Moïse » ; trad. L. M. Froidevaux, Irénèe de Lyon. Démonstration de la prédication apostolique. Nouvelle traduction de l’arménien avec introduction et notes (SC 62), Paris 1959, p. 102-105 ; qui « intrattenersi con » gli uomini sembra formare proprio il filo che unisce i testimonia.
(2) Cf. le indicazioni a margine date da Charles, p. 143.

In definitiva, le frasi che in SL2 stanno al posto di 11,2-22
appaiono l'opera di un revisore che, eliminando un testo
giudicato insostenibile sia per il carattere sospetto delle sue
fonti (testimonia apocrifi), sia soprattutto per il deciso doce-
tismo, ha fabbricato l'allusione alla vicenda terren:t del
Diletto (indispensabile tra discesa e ascesa) mediante poche
frasi ispirate a passi neotestamentari e del resto abbastanza
mal suturate con quanto precede e quanto segue.

Una sorprendente conferma del carattere originario di
11,2-22 viene dalla fortissima probabilità - a mio avviso,
praticamente la certezza - che questo brano, benché non
compreso nella versione di A I 6-11 utilizzata dai catari,
fosse tuttavia conosciuto da questi ultimi, come mostra una
predica del << perfetto •> Guillaume Belibaste riferita da
Arnaud Sicre nel registro d'inquisizione di Jacques Four-
nier (1). Se ne veda la dimostrazione in Norelli, Studi, c.
15. Questo episodio non doveva tuttavia essere noto a Beli-
baste nel contesto dell'A/, ma in quello più generale della
tradizione dell'insegnamento cataro. Il testo primitivo
dell'AI, con 11,2-22, doveva dunque essere noto agli elabo-
ratori delle dottrine bogomile in oriente, e ciò sia che la
revisione rappresentata da SL2 sia opera bogomila, sia che
sia opera ortodossa (2).

(1) Ed. J. Duvrrnoy, Le registre d’inquisition de Jacques Fournier évêque de Pamiers (1318-1325) (Bibliothèque méridionale, 2. sér. 41), 3 vol., Toulouse 1965, II, p. 46.
(2) Cf. la nostra Introduzione, § 2, p. 19-21.

Norelli, Enrico. Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius. Turnhout: Brepols, 1995. pp 535-538
Chrissy Hansen
Posts: 546
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2020 2:46 pm

Re: Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

Carrier has this really funny habit of declaring all his critics dishonest... and then acting sanctimonious about his own work while not even representing his own work accurately. Claims Litwa is a liar.

Reality:
Chris Hansen wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 11:38 am Carrier sitting there claiming he responded to Norelli and all.

Meanwhile Carrier never actually cites any of Norelli's arguments by name... or at all. He cites the Corpus Christianorum series on three occasions. Let's see what he cites them on (p. 36, n. 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 I am speaking here, which consists of chaps. 6-1 1 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. 517-3 1. 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).
He follows this by discussing Knight not Norelli. So here, he just cited the translation and commentary, but no arguments. And this footnote was specifically only for the dating of the Ascension of Isaiah to the late first or early second century CE. So Carrier isn't responding to anything here.

Let's see his next citation (pp. 39-40, n. 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 l 1 .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 1 1.2 (which I will discuss shortly).
And what is Carrier citing this on? Just to note the existence of the "pocket gospel" and its textual issues. He does not address Norelli here by name or anything else. This citation is not an argument but a citation to the manuscript history.

What does he say next (p. 48, n. 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).
I don't see nothing to do with Norelli here. And in context this is about a piece of "scripture" that Paul "quotes" (1 Cor 2:9) that has been notoriously difficult, and Carrier notes it similarly appears here and just cites the CC as evidence.

In fact, doing a word search of the PDF for Carrier's book, Norelli's name never once ever comes up. Now here is a funny thing about Carrier. On his CV, which was updated in March of this year, and is linked here (https://www.richardcarrier.info/cv.pdf), Carrier does not list Italian as one of the languages that he can read... interesting.

And as noted above, while Carrier does "cite" (in only the loosest sense) Norelli... he never really does carefully. He never cites Norelli's work by name, and further never actually interacts with the arguments Norelli puts forward. He interacts with Knight's arguments, but never once does he cite the CC and Norelli, while responding to one of Norelli's arguments in OHJ. Norelli's name does not even appear in Carrier's bibliography. In fact... I cannot even find the cited Corpus Christianorum volumes in Carrier's bibliography. Maybe I'm missing it, so correct me if I'm wrong, but right now Carrier looks to be claiming dishonesty on Litwa's part, when Carrier never once does what he claims he did. Not in OHJ anyways. And this blog post is doesn't record a rebuttal. Just a polemical caricature of Norelli.

So... where is Litwa wrong here? Carrier doesn't really cite Norelli, he never actually rebuts to Norelli's arguments anywhere in OHJ, and in total only even cites the CC three times on issues that aren't to do with Norelli's positions. If I were only reading OHJ, I wouldn't even get the impression than Carrier understood the Italian, let alone anything else.
dbz
Posts: 510
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:48 am

Re: Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by dbz »

Chris Hansen wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 10:16 am Carrier has this really funny habit of declaring all his critics dishonest... and then acting sanctimonious about his own work while not even representing his own work accurately.
Imagine a point in the future when you’re driving and your children hear the expression ‘he said, she said’ on the radio and they ask, “what does ‘he said, she said’ mean?”
Reality Check: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?
  • The <em>Ascension</em> (§6-11) is never aware of or acknowledges the <em>Martyrdom</em> (§1-5), whereas the <em>Martyrdom</em> is aware of and acknowledges the <em>Ascension</em>;
  • The <em>Ascension</em> does mention “the martyrdom” of Isaiah, but only as a known legend, it conspicuously doesn’t realize there are five chapters about it in the same book that it should refer to (and would have, had they originally been there), nor refers to any detail peculiar to that account;
  • There are further stylometric and philological reasons that scholars have all concluded (and this <em>includes</em> Norelli, by the way) that those two pieces were written by different authors at different times;
  • There are <em>actual manuscripts</em> that lack those first five chapters and exhibit no knowledge of their existence;
  • Meanwhile, the disputed centerpiece of the <em>Ascension</em>, where we have a pocket gospel story going all the way from Mary’s miraculous birthing of Jesus to some King crucifying Jesus on a tree in Jerusalem, radically deviates from the content and discourse style of the rest of the text, which evinces a different author;
  • It also does not match the surrounding text in narrative content either, which content had told us in advance what we are supposed to see and read here <em>but no extant manuscript contains that material</em>, meaning it was removed and lost, and thus all that is here now <em>cannot</em> be original;
  • There are actual manuscripts that lack this pocket gospel—and guess what? They happen to be exactly the same manuscripts that show no knowledge of the Martyrdom either, which <em>does</em> refer to this pocket gospel, indicating it was either added at the same time by that same author, or in between the separate composition of both halves of the current text;
  • And yet those manuscripts <em>also</em> lack the material we know (from earlier sections) was originally here, and also show no knowledge of the pocket gospel, but solve the problem (whatever problem the deleted text posed) by replacing it with a single sentence instead of a summary gospel;
  • And attempts to explain this away are illogical: for example, any “anti-docetist” who disagreed with the content of that pocket gospel would just change or delete the few specific details they didn’t like, not delete the entire thing, so this hypothesis <em>cannot</em> explain the complete absence of this gospel from those other manuscripts;
  • And even in those manuscripts’ replacement of the missing content with a single sentence, quite the opposite problem is created from those other manuscripts with the inserted the pocket gospel (where its elaborate specificity and language disagrees with the discourse style of the rest of the text, evincing a different author composed it): the single vague sentence they place there instead is too <em>un</em>-elaborate and <em>in</em>-specific to match either the content or the discourse style of the rest of the text, evincing a different author composed <em>even that as well</em>;
  • And that ambiguous sentence they put there also fails to contain any of the content the earlier text told its readers they should see here, so it clearly can’t have been written by the original author.


Chrissy Hansen
Posts: 546
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2020 2:46 pm

Re: Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

Yeah I read the post. And Carrier largely just doesn't seem to actually understand the arguments, and he uses polemics and extreme language like "completely illogical" for things he is clearly not actually grasping that well. Frankly, I take AoI scholars and scholars of Docetism far more serious than I take Carrier who has *no* publications on the subject in relevant journals, and I think they, being far more versed in the literature than he, would know what a docetist and an anti-docetist would do far better than Carrier does.

Carrier seems to conceptualize himself as an expert on anything he discusses, and it is really funny to me... given that he shows no knowledge of being widely read on a huge variety of the subjects, and further has no specialization in those texts and often in those languages. Case in point, he claims expertise on the AoI, but his translation is from a pop-publisher book in English, and he has expertise in medieval Slavonic or Ethiopic, with which to even fully understand the evidence at hand. Furthermore, he doesn't even show clear evidence of knowledge of Italian or even of Norelli's work. Again, as I pointed out, he never cites or engages with Norelli's arguments... like, the whole "anti-Docetist" argument is from Knight. He doesn't even include Norelli by name anywhere in his book or even in the bibliography. It is embarrassing.

Like, I provided every instance he "cites" Norelli in his book. He never engages with Norelli's arguments or work, or ever even mentions his name, nor even includes him in the bibliography.

In short, he doesn't engage with Norelli. Like, whose being dishonest here? The guy misrepresenting his own book to own Litwa, or Litwa pointing out that Carrier doesn't do what he claims?
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by neilgodfrey »

dbz wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 11:02 am . . . .
Reality Check: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?
  • There are further stylometric and philological reasons that scholars have all concluded (and this <em>includes</em> Norelli, by the way) that those two pieces were written by different authors at different times; . . . .
  • Meanwhile, the disputed centerpiece of the <em>Ascension</em>, where we have a pocket gospel story going all the way from Mary’s miraculous birthing of Jesus to some King crucifying Jesus on a tree in Jerusalem, radically deviates from the content and discourse style of the rest of the text, which evinces a different author;
  • It also does not match the surrounding text in narrative content either, which content had told us in advance what we are supposed to see and read here <em>but no extant manuscript contains that material</em>, meaning it was removed and lost, and thus all that is here now <em>cannot</em> be original;. . . .

Carrier is saying he dealt with every "substantive" argument by Norelli but here is where I have a problem with that.

Norelli gives far more substantive reasons than "stylometic and philological" ones for his case that chapters 1 to 5 were written by a different author, at a different time and social-political context and with a different theological viewpoint from chapters 6-11.

But that's not particularly relevant here given that on that point -- the difference in dating of chapters 1-5 and 6-11 -- Carrier and Norelli agree. It's just that Carrier might have strengthened his case with probably more substantial arguments by citing Norelli on this point.

What does worry me is Carrier's reliance on arguments relating to the "content and discourse style" and "the surrounding text in narrative content" with respect to 11:2-22 to claim it does not originally belong to the surrounding text.

It is there that I would have expected to see an explicit engagement with Norelli's core and substantive arguments because Norelli's detailed textual analysis is presented as the very reasons 11:2-22 must necessarily be regarded as original to chapters 6-11. For Carrier simply to deny this is the case without engaging with any of Norelli's reasons for arguing the contrary suggests to me that Carrier is relying on the very common arguments (mostly in English language scholarship) that Norelli is directly challenging.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Iin brief, Litwa was wrong to accuse Carrier of not citing Norelli's work. But Litwa would have had a stronger case if he himself had actually read Norelli's arguments -- he leads his audience to falsely imagine that he had done so -- and used them in response to Carrier.

Instead, Litwa's response actually contradicts Norelli's arguments -- and Carrier does not appear to engage with the core literary analysis arguments of Norelli as far as I have seen.

Norelli is the football in this debate but the football is being kept kicked high into the air and is never allowed to reach the ground, let alone a goal.
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Tue Oct 18, 2022 12:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
dbz
Posts: 510
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:48 am

Re: Carrier v. Litwa: What Did the “Ascension of Isaiah” Originally Say?

Post by dbz »

dbz wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 9:09 am Per Charles (1900). The Ascension of Isaiah. p.133:
[L2: XI.15]
[…]
Et vidi similem filii hominis,
et cum hominibus habitare et in mundo,
N.B. in comparison per così L2 ; trascurabili le varianti di S
[S: XI.20]
[…]
Et ecce vidi similem * ut filium hominis;
et cum hominibus * cum habitasset in mundo
Does anybody have a quote of Norelli's actual published [L2: XI.15] & [S: XI.20] that presumably supersedes Charles 1900? i.e. "et vidi similem filii hominis et cum hominibus habitare et in mundo, et non cognoverunt eum".
EDIT wrote:Tue Nov 01, 2022 1:03 pm Ascensio Isaiae apocrypha (versio latina partis finalis sub titulo 'Visio Isaiae' a. 1522 ab Antonio de Fantis edita) CC SA, 7 (Cl. Leonardi, 1995) pp. 215-233
Last edited by dbz on Tue Nov 01, 2022 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply