EmmaZunz

@GDon

OK I've read your comments on your website about Ascension of Isaiah.

The point you made which I found most interesting was the table showing the form of the Son at each point of the descent, and which you take to imply that the Son must take the form of man on earth.

Having reread the Ascension of Isaiah, here's my take on it: it was originally a vision of a covert under-cover mission by the Beloved Son-figure to sneak into Sheol and destroy the demon powers and rescue the dead souls there. Then to ascend back to the seventh heaven with them. All without being crucified. I think the crucifixion and sacrificial elements are entirely secondary and interpolations.

Now this document has been so much revised and edited and interpolated, that I don't know what is genuine and what not but here goes. I have put in bold below the most important argument, which is that the mention of crucifixion at 9:14 is an interpolation, and the theory pretty much stands or falls with that, so you might like to go look there if you don't want to read the whole post straight off.

The subject matter of Isaiah's vision is principally about Hell and the demon powers, together with the Beloved (the Son of God figure). (1:3-4)

More precisely, the subject of the vision involves "the judgment of the angels, and the destruction of this world, and regarding the garments of the saints and their going forth, and regarding their transformation and the persecution and ascension of the Beloved." (1:5)

"Persecution ... of the Beloved" - this single word might put a spanner into my crucifixion-free interpretation. Anyone know how robust the manuscripts or translation are here? If you read the rest of my case, you may be willing to consider the single word "persecution" here as a candidate for interpolation. I see too that R.H. Charles included this passage with those he considered to be not original but editorial additions. So I am setting aside this one word here as potentially unoriginal, especially since it belongs to an originally separate part of the text.

On earth, demon powers are in control of king Manasseh and sin rules the land. (2:2-8)

3:13 is a long verse about Isaiah's vision that has surely been added to by a Xian scribe. I don't think we can tell what the original said.

Down to at least 3:18 looks like later interpolation. I don't think we can tell what was originally there and what was not. I assume there was something original like what we read in 3:14-18 about a vision of the end-times, involving a judgement on the demon Beliar and ungodly people.

There is more to say in the visions according to 3:19-22, but whether this is supposed to be in this document or elsewhere, I can't tell.

5:16 again refers us to the main subject of Isaiah's vision: "the destruction of Sammael, which he had seen through the Lord".

So far, I take it that the main subject of Isaiah's vision is to be the interaction between the Son and the demon powers, together with the transformations involved for the Son before, and for the saints afterwards.

6:15, "the vision which the holy Isaiah saw was not from this world but from the world which is hidden from the flesh." Does this preclude it being a vision of events on earth? Was the vision of the end-times on earth originally in the text, and is it meant to be part of this vision? I don't know. Possibly this is a vision of what is not on earth.

Isaiah ascends through the firmament, past Sammael, an evil angel, and the angels of Satan, fighting in the firmament. (7:9)

7:10, yes you are right this fighting is mirrored on earth; but the explanatory remark seems to widen this to encompass whatever might happen in the firmament being mirrored on earth: "for the likeness of that which is in the firmament is here on the earth".

7:12, "this war (will continue) till He, whom thou shalt see will come and destroy him." Part of the Son's mission is to destroy Sammael (presumably? as the leader of evil angels?)

7:13, above the firmament is the first heaven, with angels of two different ranks on the right and left. They are giving praise to "Him who rests in the holy world, and to His Beloved". (7:17)

7:19, now the second heaven is similar to the first, but greater. Isaiah is bound for the seventh heaven, where his own garments and crown await him. And "those who love the Most High and His Beloved will afterwards ascend thither by the angel of the Holy Spirit." (7:21-23)

Into the third heaven, where ""Nothing of the vanity of that world is here named" [said Isaiah]. And he answered me, and said unto me: "Nothing is named on account of its weakness, and nothing is hidden there of what is done."" (7:25-26)

Through the fourth and fifth heavens. Isaiah praises "Him, who is not named and the Only-begotten who dwelleth in the heavens, whose name is not known to any flesh". (7:37)

Into the sixth heaven, and Isaiah hears again about "He that is not named and the Elect One, whose name has not been made known, and none of the heavens can learn His name." (8:7)

Now Isaiah is to see particularly: "He alone [the Elect One] to whose voice all the heavens and thrones give answer. I have therefore been empowered and sent to raise thee here that thou mayest see this glory. And that thou mayest see the Lord of all those heavens and these thrones undergoing (successive) transformation until He resembles your form and likeness." (8:8-10)

So the Son of God figure will be transformed gradually into the form and likeness of a man (i.e. not becoming a man by nature).

Now here we have a complication. Isaiah is first raised "into the air of the sixth heaven" (8:1) and then "into the sixth heaven" (8:16). So the heavens too each have air, apparently below them but in some way part of them.

9:1, Isaiah goes "into the air of the seventh heaven".

Enoch and others are in the seventh (highest) heaven, in the appropriate "garments" but "Crowns and thrones of glory they do not receive, till the Beloved will descend in the form in which you will see Him descend [will descend, I say] into the world in the last days the Lord, who will be called Christ." (9:12-13)

Now that looks like a prime candidate for interpolation, as it is a very awkward run-on clause. It doesn't make sense that the Beloved will only descend into the world in the last day, if Isaiah is seeing it happen right now (unless Isaiah is seeing some sort of simulation, as I discuss at the bottom). So I reject this italicised clause.

I see Earl uses a much more sense-making translation (JNGNM p. 121). Why does he have one that makes good sense, while the one here is a mess? Are the two translations from different manuscripts? Certainly there is something fishy going on here.

9:13, "when He has descended and been made in your form, and they [apparently Enoch et al] will think that He is flesh and is a man."

9:14-15, "And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is. And thus His descent, as you will see, will be hidden even from the heavens, so that it will not be known who He is."

Problematic. This is the first time that the term Son has been used to describe the "Beloved" figure (whom I have mostly referred to above as the Son for easy reference). This is the first reference to crucifixion or suffering of the Beloved, outside the interpolations early on in the text.

9:13-15 seems to have better continuity when you excise 9:14: "Nevertheless they see and know whose will be thrones, and whose the crowns when He has descended and been made in your form, and they will think that He is flesh and is a man. And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is. And thus His descent, as you will see, will be hidden even from the heavens, so that it will not be known who He is."

It interrupts the flow of the thought to suddenly mention the crucifixion, when the passage is talking about the hidden descent of the Son. The flow of ideas is this: they will think he is a man thus will his descent be hidden from the heavens. I am going to call 9:14 an interpolation.

9:16-17, "And when He hath plundered the angel of death, He will ascend on the third day. And then many of the righteous will ascend with Him, whose spirits do not receive their garments till the Lord Christ ascend and they ascend with Him."

"On the third day": possible Gospel-based interpolation; the vision later does not show a wait of three days. Earl notes that a different manuscript has a different 9:16: "And he will seize the prince of death and will plunder him, and will crush all his powers", in place of the first italicised text just above. Both versions of 9:16 involve the plundering of the angel of death, they're basically the same point (JNGNM p. 122).

The Beloved's mission: to plunder the angel of death of his dead souls who rise into heaven together with the Beloved. This fits with 1:5 and 5:16 regarding the main subject matter of the vision: crucifixion was never mentioned at that earlier point.

10:8-13, God's instructions to the Son figure:

"Go forth and descend through all the heavens, and thou wilt descend to the firmament and that world: to the angel in Sheol thou wilt descend, but to Haguel thou wilt not go. And thou wilt become like unto the likeness of all who are in the five heavens. And thou wilt be careful to become like the form of the angels of the firmament [and the angels also who are in Sheol]. And none of the angels of that world shall know that Thou art with Me of the seven heavens and of their angels. And they shall not know that Thou art with Me, till with a loud voice I have called (to) the heavens, and their angels and their lights, (even) unto the sixth heaven, in order that you mayest judge and destroy the princes and angels and gods of that world, and the world that is dominated by them: For they have denied Me and said: "We alone are and there is none beside us."

As I read it, God's mission to the Son is to covertly sneak into Sheol. That is why the Son needs to disguise himself as he passes through each heaven on the way. There are no instructions on what he is to do there in Sheol, no mention of crucifixion or suffering, until God's voice is heard and the Son is then to judge and destroy the demons.

Nothing about being killed. Nothing about going to earth. A covert under-cover mission to sneak into Sheol and destroy the demon powers and rescue the dead souls there. Then to ascend back to the seventh heaven with them.

10:14-15, the aftermath: "And afterwards from the angels of death Thou wilt ascend to Thy place. And Thou wilt not be transformed in each heaven, but in glory wilt Thou ascend and sit on My right hand. And thereupon the princes and powers of that world will worship Thee.""

10:17-27, the Son descends in disguise and unperceived from the seventh down through the first heaven, disguised as an appropriate angel in each heaven.

10:29, the Son sneaks unnoticed through "the firmament where dwelleth the ruler of this world" sharing the appearance of the evil angels here (evil angels as of 7:9).

10:30, the Son descends into the air below the firmament, disguises himself as an angel of the air; the angels of the air are fighting like the evil angels of the firmament, and they do not notice him.

11:1, the crux: "AFTER this I saw, and the angel who spoke with me, who conducted me, said unto me: "Understand, Isaiah son of Amoz; for for this purpose have I been sent from God."

But unfortunately here we have the HJ interpolations, 11:2-22.

What happened? GDon thinks the Son figure descended to the earth and was crucified there. I now think the Son figure descended in disguise into Sheol and completed the mission there which God gave him at 10:8-15: the "harrowing of hell" as it has come to be called in later Xian legend. How, in the missing text, did the Son get into hell? Surely in the disguise, the likeness, the appearance, of a man.

There is nothing about crucifixion here that is not interpolation, in particular 9:14.

11:23-32, the aftermath matches God's prediction of 10:14-15: the Son rises back up through the firmament and the heavens, now recognised according to his true identity.

There "was much sorrow" in the firmament, presumably because the demons' power has now been defeated.

11:38, "And all this vision will be consummated in the last generations."

Presumably the vision was a kind of simulation of the act of the Son, because according to 9:17, "And then many of the righteous will ascend with Him". But in the vision, we do not see the souls of the godly ascending with the Son. Was it maybe some sort of dry-run?

This ending does not seem to make sense. It seems incoherent. If the Son has harrowed hell, where are the rescued souls that should be ascending with him? Maybe this is just a weakness in the writing: the writer wanted to show the act of the Son, but also tell to us that it would not happen till the end.

I think it's just incoherent.

Anyway, that is my take on the Ascension of Isaiah: a covert under-cover mission to sneak into Sheol and destroy the demon powers and rescue the dead souls there. Then to ascend back to the seventh heaven with them. I think the crucifixion and sacrificial elements are entirely secondary.

Earl asks where is "the atonement concept we associate with standard Christianity? It is not there. There is no dying for sin. What the Ascension of Isaiah presents is a simple rescue operation on the part of the Son, freeing prisoners from the clutches of the evil angels who control the lower parts of the universe and block access to Heaven. The heavenly paradigm is acting on behalf of the righteous trapped in Sheol, to exalt them as he becomes exalted." (JNGNM pp. 122-3)

I think Earl is right, but I am going one step further. Not only is there no "dying for sin" concept here, but in the original text there was no dying at all. The Beloved was not crucified by the demons, he just attacked them in a covert mission and broke the souls of the righteous dead out of hell.

seeker

Oddly enough Doherty takes on this subject here.

An excerpt:

What is relevant here is the dating of both the Ascension and Vision of Isaiah as clearly not only in the Christian era but in the Gnostic era. Unfortunately the nature of the doctrinal wars between various Christian factions of that era is that any document from that era is bound to represent an ideological faction, in this case Gnosticism.

Still the main point of the OP is the notion of a mythical realm which is really Platonic. Doherty makes the same connection that most scholars make, ie that the Gnostic view of the nature of heaven and hell is grounded in Plato's Theory of Forms which theorizes that this world is just an imperfect copy of the heavenly master copy. Bottom line is that it was Plato's notions of the nature of heaven and hell that informed most theology during the Greek and Roman eras and is clearly present in the mystery religions of the era. There is every reason to believe that the gnostic version of Christianity would have adopted this view as well.

Once the Church asserted its authority and declared Gnosticism a heresy they made a concerted effort to eliminate references to the notion that Jesus existed only on a mythical plane.

EmmaZunz

OK. My main arguments involve the third part: the interpolation I claim at 9:14, and the instructions of God at 10:8-13.

But also, the first redactor to bring the parts together, was not necessarily the same as the Xian redactor, so perhaps editorial additions in part 1 can comment on the original content of part 3.

seeker

My fault, I posted a partial post then re-edited the rest in. I hope the rest of the edit is more helpful.

EmmaZunz

But if it's not Gnostic but something even older, then the Vision could be considerably older than its Xian redaction.

seeker

I would suggest that it is Gnostic but Gnostic theology is Platonic, the Vision of Isaiah is probably second century as Doherty suggests but it's basis is the same as that for the other mystery religions of that era. The Church obfuscated the theology when they tried to wipe out all Gnostic references, making it appear as though there was never any thought of mythical realms.

GakuseiDon

Some thoughts: Yes, what you say makes sense. But the problem is that you need to have interpolations in the text where we have no evidence for interpolations. And claims on that basis -- to conform to a new theory -- need to be evaluated carefully.

When you say above, "GDon thinks the Son figure descended to the earth...", it isn't what I think; it is what the texts appear to say. We can leave aside the Ethiopian text as the final redaction by a Christian editor. But what happens if we look at the reconstructed earlier versions of Slavonic and L2? Here is what Doherty wrote when I discussed it with him on FRDB:

One assumes (insofar as we can pinpoint meanings imbedded in a document full of editings and amendments that are very hard to pin down in any exact way) that "in your form" was indeed, in the mind of that particular editor (probably one subscribing to docetism, as in the nearby phrase "they will think that he is flesh and a man"), a reference to human form and probably a reference to earth.

I'd recommend you reading through the thread, at least from page 3, to see the various responses from the participants. Andrew Criddle makes the point:

Given that the Latin/Slavonic text refers earlier to the crucifixion and death of the Son, I think the reference to 'dwelling with men in the world' must imply that the death of the Son is also supposed (in the present form of this text) to occur among men upon earth.

If this is the case, then the earlier versions (Latin/Slavonic) appear to have a reference to the Beloved dying on earth, among men.

Could there have been an earlier version that said something different, perhaps along the lines that you suggest? We can't rule it out of course. All I can say is that we don't have those versions, and of the versions we do have, the evidence does not support Doherty's theory (i.e. crucifixion above the earth), and in fact the evidence goes against it.

It's possible, I guess. But I think before looking at possible earlier reconstructions, it is important that we acknowledge that as it now stands the Slavonic and Latin versions of the Ascension of Isaiah do appear to go against Doherty's reading of a crucifixion above the earth. That's important, because people point to the Slavonic/Latin versions of Ascension of Isaiah text as supporting Doherty. But that isn't the case. They appear to go against Doherty's theory.

EmmaZunz

You would be talking about an intermediate form of the text, before the Gospel-based interpolations?

Actually I'm not sure there was one. What if the Xian interpolator of chapter 11 also interpolated 9:14, as seems natural to me?

Then the only schemes that were written were the original non-sacrificial Beloved which I propose, and the Gospelised earthly crucifixion edition.

I would suggest that 9:14 -- "And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they/he will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is" -- is linked to the Gospelised chapter 11 but with its content partially determined by the devil-centric concerns of the pre-existing text.

Since the whole text is about devils (evil angels), the proposed interpolator may have written 9:14 in this way to harmonise a little with the text he started with.

All of which would go to say that Isaiah is not a conclusive proof-of-concept for Earl insofar as a sacrifice in heaven is concerned.

But I'm not up on all the manuscript differences. Is it likely that 9:14 was written at the same time as the chapter 11 interpolation? It makes no difference to my theory about the meaning of the original text, but it makes a difference as to whether there was an intermediate text which had 9:14 but not the chap. 11 interpolations.

I see that 9:14 is in the Latin/Slavonic. But then that mention of crucifixion is not repeated in Latin/Slavonic chap. 11 where you might expect it, if they were from the same hand. The lack of crucifixion in Latin/Slavonic chap. 11 strongly suggests to me that there was originally no crucifixion in chap. 11 (since a Xian scribe would have been unlikely to delete it), and that in turn suggests to me as another piece of evidence that 9:14 was not original (since if it were, we would expect crucifixion to reappear in chap. 11).

But then who the hell would have written 9:14? Not the original writer who I suppose left it out of original chapter 11; not the Latin/Slavonic interpolator who did not mention crucifixion in his chap. 11 interpolation; not the Ethiopic interpolator as 9:14 is in the Latin/Slavonic too. It makes no sense to me where it came from.

You tell me the text you think there was intermediately, and I'll give an amateur opinion on it for you!

I have to say, if 9:14 is part of an intermediate text, then the location of the crucifixion is quite simply not clear.

GakuseiDon

I'm referring to the Slavonic and Latin2 versions, apparently earlier versions of the AoI, which Doherty argues supports him, but which actually seem to reference the Son appearing on earth (as Doherty admits with a "probably" in the link I gave above.)

Then if that could be shown, we would need to remove 9.14 from analysis.

It's possible I suppose.

Agreed. (Though I would state that it goes against Doherty's theory, since the author explicitly states the form of the Beloved at each level.)

Again, I'm just concerned with the texts that are used in Doherty's analysis: the extant Ethiopian, and the Slavonic and Latin versions. I think that Doherty's analysis is demonstrably wrong. Of course that might not apply to possibly earlier texts, but we need to be clear what those texts say first before moving to earlier reconstructions.

Well... the problem is that the Latin/Slavonic text DOES refer to the crucifixion and death of the Son. To say that in the L/S version it is in 9.14 but not in 11, therefore an earlier version didn't have it in 9.14 raises the question: If the L/S redactor put it in 9.14, and it has a natural place in 11, then why didn't he/she put it in 11 as well?

Thanks. I certainly have my own opinion on all this. But for now, I'm not arguing for an intermediary text. I'm working from the same texts used by Doherty: the extant Ethiopian, and the Slavonic/Latin.

EmmaZunz

This is getting complicated!

"If the L/S redactor put it in 9.14, and it has a natural place in 11, then why didn't he/she put it in 11 as well?"

But then if an older writer or editor, even the original, copied by the L/S, put in 9:14, then why did they not put it in 11 to be preserved by L/S?

I think we have to assume 9:14 is older than L/S and E since it is in both. So it seems someone wrote 9:14 but either that older writer neglected to follow it up in 11 or the L/S editor did away with what they added to 11.

Both are strange conclusions.

I guess a Xian might have added 9:14 but for some reason did not bother to change chap. 11. Maybe it was too big a job and they did not have time. God knows what happened.

Edit you might have missed above: I have to say, if 9:14 is part of an intermediate text, then the location of the crucifixion is quite simply not clear.