TedM

Split from the Response to Earl Doherty's Top 20 Silences, this is just what the title suggests. TedH blasted the scholarship level of Muller, I challenged him to find 3 places where Muller was wrong, and he came up with these from Carrier’s initial review of Muller’s work. I wrote to Muller about them, and received the replies in blue below. My comments are in red:


Carrier: Muller is wrong to imply there is no evidence the "higher and lower worlds" view "was believed by anyone in the first three centuries." The evidence for that is solid....

Muller: I rephrased that on my critique, because both heaven and earth are considered "world" in ancient literature. I reworded the passage and focused on contesting the alleged believed existence of, specifically, an intermediary world between God's heaven and earth, a world ruled by bad demons. I do not think I ever wrote what you seem to get from Carrier, except if "lower worlds" means lower heavens. "by anyone", I do not know think I said that (I certainly do not pretend to know what was on the mind of every person in antiquity). But in order to be a plausible hypothesis, that lower heaven had to be widely believed, because Paul does not have to explain (or defend, or even state) it in his authentic epistles (except if "Zion" means "lower heavens"!!!). I do not know about Carrier's evidence (he never stated it), but Doherty answered the question on JesusMysteries list recently: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusM.../message/21092

Mulller originally said this: “That comes after three pages of convoluted rhetorical speculations leading to some mythical upper world, with nothing suggesting it was believed by anyone in the first three centuries.� Was Muller wrong? It sounds to me like that depends on what “it� is referring to: the existence of an upper world (lower heaven) below heaven and above earth, or the kind of upper world (lower heaven) Doherty speculates about. It’s not clear to me which of these he originally was commenting on. If it was the former, it sounds like he was wrong. If it was the latter, it sounds like he wasn’t. Please correct me if I got this wrong.


Carrier:… of Muller thus makes the mistake of thinking "the Platonic heaven" was "an upper space inhabited by ethereal 'universals'," etc. That isn't quite correct. First, Plato also envisioned physical intermediary deities that mediate between man and God (Symposium 202e-203a).

Muller: That's rather odd, and against what the Platonic heaven is fundamentally known for by scholars. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forms and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_realism . I think Carrier makes a lot of a very short passage in Symposium, which otherwise deals with spirits. This passage seems to associate "Logos" such as Plenty, Poverty and Discretion with a god for each. Where did Plato have the traditional "heavenly" gods residing? As written in Plato's Phaedo (towards the end), in some very high highlands or islands on earth.


Carrier: But more importantly, it is the Middle Platonic view that Doherty is talking about, which is not a realm of universals (which are *not* ethereal, but literally without substance *or* location, at least per se). The Middle Platonic heavens are a material, physical place, with actual entities that live there and move between them (cf. Paul's trip to the 3rd Heaven in 2 Cor. 12; and just about anything Origen has to say on the subject).

Muller: I reviewed what was available about middle Platonism on the web, and despite some relevant sites being very detailed, I never found what Carrier is claiming (I expanded a lot on the subject here: http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html ). As far as the third heaven of Paul, in the Jewish scriptures, there are three kinds of heavens very distinct, the air between earth and moon (with the clouds and winds), the celestial bodies (moon, sun, planets and stars), and finally God's heaven above the firmament. Furthermore Paul's described Jesus as being with God, in the highest heaven, and it is most logical he "met" Jesus here. Furthermore, paradise, which is in 3rd heaven, would be where the Christians will have their (future) "Kingdom". Because those were supposed to live eternally with the heavenly Jesus. So paradise is also in the highest & third heaven. Concerning Origen, he wrote in the 3rd century, he did not know Paul personally, and I doubt he wrote in clear-cut terms what Carrier said. Diplomatically, Paul wrote he did not know if he went to 3rd heaven in the body. Anyway, I do not dispute, in the times of Paul and in the Jewish world then, there were beliefs of souls or spirits moving to & fro heaven and earth, the air being a space in between. But I think Carrier is stretching a lot from very little, as in what follows:


Carrier: So Indeed, this was a fundamental of Roman-period magic, which was entirely demonic, i.e. based on summoning and binding invisible demons that live in the aer (as opposed to natural magic, an invention of the early Middle Ages to bypass Christian accusations of Satanism)

Muller Carrier never came with any evidence to support that. Mythicist are grasping at any tiny straws trying to prove a) Paul had a middle Platonic mind, b) Well-accepted middle Platonism had all the ingredients they want in it.>.

Muller's site has a number of examples discussing the conception of the worlds and location of demons.



Carrier: So again [about descending and ascending gods] D. is right: Jesus was to descend to the *firmament*, then Sheol, *not* earth. Earth is never mentioned here (the phrase "that world" refers to Sheol, or at most the whole sphere below the moon, not earth specifically--see below). One might say that "technically" Jesus had to pass earth to get to Sheol, but that does not mean he stopped on earth, and it is certainly not said here that he did or was even supposed to--he is told to go to the f. and then Sheol. Period...I am quite certain D. is right here--he has the majority of scholars behind him, including the top experts on this very text. So M. is wrong to criticize D. for this.


Muller a lot of BS about "majority of scholars" and "top experts". There is nothing in Ascension of Isaiah which says Jesus was not supposed to descend to earth. Sheol and the firmament are never considered a world on their own, together or separately. Furthermore, in AofI, Jesus does go down through the firmament. Read again my page where I explain that: http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html . And then, AofI is a second century writing considerably interpolated, and not from Paul


Carrier: The blood of the Lamb must be sprinkled on the altar. All readers would have *known* that--they didn't need to be told. Hebrews 9 definitely says Christ's blood was sprinkled on the Heavenly Altar.


Muller Heb9 (and the whole of Hebrews) does not say that. Sprinkle, yes, on altar, no. Actually the word 'altar' does not appear in Heb9, period. And then, I see an argument from silence. Again, I expanded on the topic in http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html


Carrier: That certainly implies he was sacrificed in the Heavenly Outer Tabernacle. See Hebrews 9:23-24 -

Muller absolutely not, more so when in Hebrews, Jesus is said to be crucified (in the body!), not chopped on any altar.


Carrier: Christ is the "better sacrifice" who cleanses the "copy" in heaven of the altar on earth, who did not enter the earthly tabernacle but the heavenly one. Indeed, Hebrews 10 struggles to argue from ch. 9 that this is the very reason why Christ only had to be sacrificed once: because, being heavenly, and performed on the *true* altar, it is permanent, unlike the earthly sacrifices. After all, the "better versions" of things are always in Heaven. That is made clear throughout Hebrews, and of course by 8:1-2, which is why D. cites it (but also see 9:11).


Muller <a lot of …mythicist interpretations. The better versions of things in heaven is the holy places and the tabernacle, never an altar. I made a point that, in the Jewish world, the sacrifices are always outside any tabernacle. Carrier seemed to think the altar was inside the outer tabernacle. Wrong! See http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html


Carrier: Again, M. is wrong. But D. can't prove that this was not mapped onto an earthly counterpart. Yes, there is a heavenly sacrifice, but maybe that only paralleled a real one on earth.

Muller never in Hebrews, the sacrifice is said to have been done in heaven. Only some sprinkling of Jesus' blood (by Jesus himself, obviously as resurrected, in the heavenly tabernacle).


Rather than comment myself--what do readers here think? Are Muller's points valid? He provides a lot more evidence on his site. Do you agree with Muller that there is no evidence for Doherty's ideas about the activities of demons? If so, does it seem a stretch to conclude that Paul was writing about one?

ted

TedM

I"m not sure that is accurate. Muller's site now says "That comes after three pages of convoluted imaginative rhetorical speculations leading to some mythical upper middle world, with nothing suggesting it was significantly believed in the first three centuries."

andrewcriddle

Going through the points in reverse order

On Hebrews Muller is IMO simply right.

On the Ascension of Isaiah Muller is probably right but for a useful discussion one would have to clarify which version of the Ascension of Isaiah we're talking about. IE the Ethiopic version, the Slavonic/Latin version, the Hypothetical archetype of these versions (for which the Greek Legend of Isaiah http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/gopher/oth...)%20translated must be taken into account), or the still more hypothetical original version underlying the archetype of all existing versions.

On the First point about daemons in Middle Platonism I'm not clear what the precise disagreement is. My initial response would be that daemons in the Aer are important in Middle Platonism which is a reasonably widespread viewpoint at the time of Paul. However, some of Doherty's claims about Daemonology in the time of Paul seem doubtful, and involve reading into Plutarch ideas that are not explicit there. What are the precise claims by Doherty about ancient Daemonology that Muller is rejecting ?

Andrew Criddle

TedM

I think it is the claim that they were represented as doing things (such as crucifying) in the air in which they reside, as opposed to FIRST descending to earth and then doing things on earth to and through humans. But I could be dead wrong on this. I'll see if I can get further clarification from Muller.

ted

GakuseiDon

I think the point of disagreement is the nature of the world envisioned by Middle Platonists as Doherty expresses it here:
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp03.htm

But most views of the universe also saw a division of the upper world into several levels—usually seven, based on the known planets. As a deity descended from the higher reaches of pure spirit, he passed through ever degenerating levels of the heavens, and took on an increasing likeness to lower, material forms as well as an ability to suffer fleshly fates, such as pain and death. The first level of the spirit world was the air, or "firmament," between the earth and the moon. This was the domain of the demon spirits—in Jewish parlance, of Satan and his evil angels—and it was regarded as closely connected to the earthly sphere. The demonic spiritual powers belonged to the realm of flesh (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, VII, p.128) and they were thought of as in some way corporeal, though they possessed 'heavenly' versions of earthly bodies (Ibid., p.143).

Thus it was wholly conceivable for Paul's savior deity in that spiritual world to descend into the realm of the demon spirits. Here he would be in the sphere of flesh, which fits the early writers' almost universal use of such stereotyped phrases as "in flesh," "according to the flesh." (C. K. Barrett translates kata sarka in Romans 1:3 as "in the sphere of the flesh." See his Epistle to the Romans, p.20; compare C. E. B. Cranfield, International Critical Commentary: Romans, p.60.) Here Christ possessed or could assume counterpart characteristics to those of the visible world; he could undergo suffering and death at the hands of the spirits as a blood sacrifice, and be raised by God back to the highest heaven.

This is kind of true, except that Doherty views this "first level of the spirit world" as a "fleshly realm" separate to our own. In that realm, Christ could be crucified, buried and raised. I think that this is what Muller is pointing out in his first point. Doherty sees an intermediate world, "a fleshy realm", between the earth and the heavens.

The problem is that the "fleshy realm" really IS the air AFAIK, as Doherty himself points out. Christ couldn't be crucified or buried there since there was nothing to crucify and bury him in.

There was the earth, the air and the heavens. Demons lived in the air, with Satan in charge at the firmament, which separated the heavens from the earth. The air really was "an intermediate world" (or level), but it didn't form a separate "fleshy realm" where crucifixion (for example) could be done. AFAIK you could view it by simply looking up. This at least is my understanding.

The Romans had a slightly different view, but were essentially the same. Andrew has a good summary covering background issues at this thread:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=119283

TedM

Thank you Don for your explanation. I have received the following reply by Muller to the third point Andrew questioned, which is directly related:

"BM: I have nothing to add above what I wrote on my critique (first part), towards the beginning: http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html . I am doubting the belief of a "world" between earth and God's heaven during Paul's times (even centuries after), period. And more so one (in the air), where bad demons would rule and able to intercept (and crucify) anyone. Why? The evidence presented in favor of these hypothese is extremely weak and/or postdates Paul's time and/or requires a lot of interpretation & life support. I did not find it in what I learned from middle Platonism, Paul, 'Hebrews', Philo of Alexandria or Plutarch (the later, quoting Empedocles).

The version of A of I, as presented by Andrew, certainly is favorable to my cause."

ted

TedM

Is anyone else having problems editing? I tried to change the last post to say "first point" instead of third point, but it isn't taking...

GakuseiDon

I would add Second Century writings by Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix and Tertullian as being favorable to Muller's views as well.

(PS I had no problems with the editting function)

EarlDoherty

When I registered with IIDB to discuss Minucius Felix, I said in my first posting that I would be interested in making some comments on other threads relating to Middle Platonism and the sublunar realm, etc. I suppose this is the time do so, as those subjects seem to be resurfacing now in connection with Bernard Muller and my website response to him.

First, I understand that Mr. Muller has provided no direct rebuttal to that response, short of tinkering with his original critique to try to soften the more outspoken claims which both Carrier and I showed were unjustified. Yet he is still maintaining that there is insufficient evidence that the ancient world placed salvation deities’ activities in lower celestial areas, or even that Platonic philosophy at the time of Christianity presented a series of heavenly spheres populated by various spiritual entities who acted there and moved between them. To soften “nothing� he inserts the term “significantly,� simply an evasive measure. He confuses Plato with Middle Platonism. His understanding of the epistle to the Hebrews remains abysmal (see Ted’s OP above), and he is reduced to arguing in astonishingly amateur and uninformed terms, including that the word “altar� doesn’t appear in heaven in chapters 9, as though the terms “sanctuary� and “tabernacle�—clearly placed in heaven—don’t serve the purpose. He apparently takes a passing reference to “cross� in chapter 12, imposes his own historical interpretation on it, and lets it govern the detailed and explicit presentation in chapters 8 and 9 which clearly present a “sacrifice� in heaven. I could go on, but I won’t bother. Muller is the most frustratingly impervious dissenter I have ever dealt with, on websites or discussion boards, and I would take a dozen GakuseiDons over him any day. I will waste no further time with what he has to say.

Don has in fact brought over a couple of key points from those earlier threads to this one, and I think this is the place to deal with them. Let’s start here:

Don’s difficulty seems to be a conceptual one, as suggested by his “AFAIK�. He can’t envision such things as crucifixion and burial being performed anywhere but on earth. He has pointed elsewhere to simplistic diagrams dividing the universe into earth, sublunary air and supralunary heaven—which is fine, as simplistic renditions go. But it doesn’t mean that spiritual activities cannot go on in that dimension between the surface of the earth and the border of the moon, known as the “aer� or “firmament�. Don accuses me of creating a “separate dimension� in the air that is distinct from the surface of the earth, but this is just semantics. I don’t really know whether Platonists officially ‘defined’ this sphere as a separate dimension. They weren’t big on subjecting their philosophy to reality-based scientific investigation, and no governing association set down authoritative terms and concepts for members of the discipline, let alone the ordinary layman. Interpretations of the layers of heaven varied, there being no central authority to determine ‘correct dogma’.

What Don is appealing to is our 21st century scientifically-oriented minds, that demand uniformity and understanding from a rational point of view. Specifically, since there is no “ground� in the firmament, how can Jesus have been regarded as “buried�? But that’s not how the ancient mind worked. And he is overlooking the evolutionary background of this kind of thinking. Let’s back up.

Mythology about gods and their activities began long before Platonism, and was regarded as taking place in a primordial (or “sacred�) time in the distant past, or in a setting which was indeterminate. One only has to look at some of the ‘genesis’ or primordial type of myth from Mesopotamia and elsewhere, the interactions between various gods which created ideas, basic forms, order out of chaos, etc., etc., to realize that those who formed such myths hardly worked out a definite setting for them which their minds could grasp. This did not stop such myths from being created and adopted. When we get to more ‘historical’ type myths of the next stage, such as those relating to Isis and Osiris, there is probably no question that these were initially regarded as having taken place on earth, though in a distant, even timeless, past that may not have been directly linked in a traceable chain with identifiable history. (The Hebrews were, I believe, the first to take that specific step.)

But ideas evolve, and there is no question (despite Muller’s objections) that part of that evolution involved seeing the heavenly realms as the place of divine activities, and containing counterparts to things on earth. The latter goes back into Babylon, long before Plato. If shifts in thinking take place, people’s minds adapt. Or they fudge, or they simply accept that it’s a mystery which can’t be explained ‘scientifically’. If the myth of Osiris has to be shifted from earth to the heavens, are the devotees of a religion that’s been around for millennia going to say, Oh, this no longer makes sense that Osiris could be dismembered and buried in pieces. Where did they get the dismemberment instrument, where the boxes, where is the ground in which these parts of Osiris were interred? Of course not. Some minds will declare it’s all allegory. Others will dismiss (or be ignorant of) scientific concerns, or simply regard that there are a different set of ‘realities’ in the heavens, and that somehow these things take place there. Perhaps in an equivalent kind of ‘matter’ or ‘flesh.’

The latter is made easier if much of this mythology is based on scripture. If the trend of an age is to see scripture as illuminating a spiritual world and divine meaning, and if one is disposed to regarding the writings as sacred, then certain passages must point to a higher world reality, even if our earthly minds can’t understand it. I happen to think that this is the principal and simple explanation for passages like “of David’s stock� and “born of woman.� In the former case, Paul explicitly makes this declaration because he sees it as part of God’s gospel of the Son found in the prophets (Romans 1:2). I have little doubt that the Galatians 4:4 declaration is based on Isaiah 7:14. I would bet the family farm that Paul’s basic gospel of 1 Corinthians 15:1-3, which he tells us is derived from scripture (and which he has elsewhere declared is the product of revelation, no doubt to do with the reading of scripture), has been based on Isaiah 53. He may not have understood these things in his own rational mind (to whatever extent his mind was rational), but he could accept them as “true� in some sense. The philosophy of the ancient world was largely based on the principle of regarding the spiritual realm as “genuine�, with the material realm dependent on it. We know this. Muller may turn his blind eye on it, but it’s indisputable. Philosophers strove to understand that higher world, and our connection with it, but if they failed to make all the pieces fit, or lay it bare to their own limited earthbound minds of matter, they didn’t simply toss out the whole thing (as they should have). They put it down to those limitations, just as believers do today. Now that we know that heaven isn’t in the sky or hell in a subterranean part of the earth, do they reject it outright (as they should)? No, it becomes spiritualized. Somehow, even in that spiritual dimension, as preachers insist every day, fire and pain torture the damned in hell. Shouldn’t Don reject those concepts (perhaps he does) on the basis of them not being able to exist in spiritual dimensions? But surely *some* form of pain or suffering, even if it’s not actual fire or the devils’ pitchforks inflicted on material flesh, must be a part of hell, but what is it? Well, some spiritual equivalent, perhaps? Or perhaps it’s all allegory? No theologian can tell us definitively, but it doesn’t stop them from believing it and inflicting it on Christians. I suggest that the same situation existed in the ancient world in regard to the suffering of a savior-god, and his burial, in a spiritual dimension. For Paul, faith required that he believed in these things in some fashion, even if he didn’t understand them. He was hardly going to have a rational epiphany and decide one morning just to chuck the whole thing.

As for the evidence, which Muller can’t find, and which Don dismisses or misinterprets. It is true that we don’t have a lot of evidence of these concepts in the surviving record, and much of what is there consists of ‘pointers’; knowing what we do about the dominant ideas of the time, we can deduce what they are talking about, as in 1 Corinthians 2:8, or the pre-Pauline hymn of Philippians 2:6-11. The area where we would expect to find such evidence is pretty well limited to savior-god mythology and related Gnostic philosophies. But outside of Christianity (which is a savior-god religion), there is precious little of the mystery cult record available, partly because it was secret, and partly because Christianity did its best to destroy it. The mysteries have ancient roots, and thus their mythology was an evolved hodge-podge of the primordial and the Platonic, which might not have made an efficient mix, or consistent sense, to the mind looking for a rational explanation of it all. In any case, we can’t be sure that any but a few philosophers were concerned with understanding it rationally (and not even Plutarch is fully rational by our standards). As I have said, we can’t be sure just how the average devotee-in-the-street interpreted it. But all this does not mean that they did not accept it. Much more intelligent and sophisticated minds today accept a whole lot of things which are just as unfounded and incomprehensible from a scientific point of view (and just as ridiculous) as anything the ancients may have believed in. Thus I find most of Don’s objections along these lines ill-founded.

Incidentally, a good illuminator of all this, and perhaps of much else, may be provided by a consideration of the idea of blood sacrifice in ancient times. Based on precedents going far back into pre-history, it permeates the entire Old and New Testaments, the latter in regard to animal sacrifices to God for propitiation and atonement, and the former, of course, in regard to Jesus’ sacrifice. Hebrews directly says (9:22): “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.� But neither here, nor anywhere else in the entire Bible, does anyone make an attempt to explain why this is so. Why does God need blood? Why does blood forgive sins? On the surface (at least to our minds) it is a ludicrous and repugnant concept. Yet the ancient world was based on it, and certainly Christianity, and it continues to be so today. But because the ancients couldn’t understand it, couldn’t offer a rational explanation for it, did they reject it? Did Paul spend his time explaining and justifying the “why� of Christ crucified as being God’s system of salvation, his divine wisdom as “folly� in the eyes of worldly wisdom? He could no more explain it than think it was necessary to explain it. Although the question of blood sacrifice has nothing to do with Platonism, its acceptability at the time makes a good parallel with Middle Platonic views of the universe. The point is, people will subscribe to irrational and unverifiable things, if tradition or perceived revelation or even the misguided intellect (which philosophers continually appealed to) tells them that something just is.

In a way, it’s all rather ironic. The historicist viewpoint for around 18 centuries has brought literalism (through its interpretation of the Gospels) to a very unliteral and mystical faith and outlook on the universe. Now Don is trying to discredit that faith through the imposition of literalism upon it. It’s not literally comprehensible, therefore no one could have believed in it.

This has been more of an ‘overview’ posting, and for now I’ll only take the trouble to dispute one detail of what he has said, appealing to one document. Don seems to claim that the sublunary realm was essentially continuous with that of the material earth, with no distinction made or possible. One could see it “simply by looking up.� Well, I don’t think the evidence we do have bears that out. Consider chapter 7 of the Ascension of Isaiah. The angel is embarking on a journey with Isaiah through the heavens. His first stop is the air or firmament:

�And we went up into the firmament, I and he, and there I saw Sammael and his hosts; and there was a great struggle in it, and the words of Satan, and they were envying one another. And as above, so also on earth, for the likeness of what is in the firmament is here on earth…�

The movement up into the firmament is the first step in the ascent. They are not still on earth. In fact, the angel makes a clear distinction between the firmament and earth, referring to them as essentially two different areas which can be compared, which have things in common. If there was no distinction in the writer’s mind, that comparison would make no sense. And things DO go on in that realm, that ‘sphere’ if you like, and they are not being done by material beings with material objects. I hardly think that Don, standing on earth and “by simply looking up�, even with a telescope, could see this great struggle going on among the evil angels of the aer. And what were they “struggling� with? Did they use swords? Did they wear armor? If they did, it couldn’t have been material swords and armor. How did they forge these things? On spiritual forges fed with heavenly fire? Did the writer of the Ascension trouble himself with such questions? If the reader of his work envisioned some kind of cosmic battle (which the passage suggests), and reading the words “as above, so also on earth, etc.� would he have rejected it all because it wouldn’t have made sense at the literal, material level?

Don also misconstrues the opening of chapter 11, in declaring somewhat simplistically that there is no ‘extra step’ from the air onto the earth. But he does not take into account the interpolation which most of this chapter constitutes and how the lead-in to it has been affected by the insertion. But going into that would be lengthy, and this post has been long enough already.

GakuseiDon

Earl, I'm afraid to say that everything that I have read on this point indicates that Muller is correct, and you are wrong. That especially became clear as I became familiar with second century writings.

The sublunary realm is that under the firmament. Heck, you don't even need to use a telescope to see the firmament. If it is daylight where you are, look outside - it is that big blue band that forms a dome overhead. If it is night, it is where you see the stars embedded. It's what separates the waters on the earth from the waters in the sky. If you built a tower high enough, you could shoot an arrow and poke a hole in it. It's where Christ will break through with the hosts when he arrives on clouds in the last days.

More importantly, it is the band that separates the changing and impermanent earth with the unchanging heavens. The demons were cast out of the heavens and lived under the firmament, in the sublunary realm. Satan's domain extended from the earth up to the firmament.

From here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/m/midplato.htm
"Ocellus understood the cosmos as divided in two parts, the supra-lunar and the sub-lunar, the gods existing in the former and daemons and humans in the latter. It is only in the sub-lunar regions, he argued, that generation and decay occurs, for it is in this region that "nonessential" beings undergo alteration according to nature."

So the "daemons and humans" existed in the sub-lunar regions. This obviously extended to the earth.

Yes, correct. They moved up from earth, INTO the air, and ascended up to the firmament.

Earl, perhaps you can clarify this point. I'm saying that Isaiah ascended in an upwards direction to reach the dome of the firmament. He didn't pass into any other dimension. That is, someone with a telescope (assuming that Isaiah was in a viewable form) could physically view him ascending up to the firmament. Do you agree with this point?

True. That's because the demons were of an "aerial" nature and invisible. Early writers placed the demons as dwelling in the air or on earth, NOT in another realm. Tertullian certainly placed the demons in the air:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...tullian01.html
Every spirit is possessed of wings. This is a common property of both angels and demons. So they are everywhere in a single moment; the whole world is as one place to them; all that is done over the whole extent of it, it is as easy for them to know as to report. Their swiftness of motion is taken for divinity, because their nature is unknown... From dwelling in the air, and their nearness to the stars, and their commerce with the clouds, they have means of knowing the preparatory processes going on in these upper regions, and thus can give promise of the rains which they already feel.

M Felix had the demons dwelling on earth after expulsion from heaven:

Such are the demons; these are they who laid down the doctrine of Fate. Their fundamental principle was the placing of animals in the heavens. For the creeping things on the earth, and those that swim in the waters, and the quadrupeds on the mountains, with which they lived when expelled from heaven

To continue with AoI:

2. ... I saw a glorious angel...
3. And having seized me by my hand he raised me on high...
9. And we ascended to the firmament, I and he, and there I saw Sammael and his hosts, and there was great fighting therein and the angels of Satan were envying one another.
10. And as above so on the earth also; for the likeness of that which is in the firmament is here on the earth.
11. And I said unto the angel (who was with me): "(What is this war and) what is this envying?"
12. And he said unto me: "So has it been since this world was made until now, and this war (will continue) till He, whom thou shalt see will come and destroy him."
13. And afterwards he caused me to ascend (to that which is) above the firmament: which is the (first) heaven.
14. And there I saw a throne in the midst, and on his right and on his left were angels.

So Isaiah ascends from earth, and up to the firmament, which is the limit of Satan's domain. It is here that Isaiah ascends to the lowest level of the celestial sphere.

The likeness of the firmament to the earth appears to refer to the "envying" and "struggling". I haven't seen any evidence that the struggling was done using swords or armour.

If you had any evidence that the demons had armour or swords, or that the air could contain crucifixes or women who gave birth or ground to be buried in, by all means present it.