gnosis92

I've read the Jesus mythicist response to my other thread, Doherty's use of Odes of Solomon, and the arguments I used for that work I can use here.

I am aware Doherty talks about it in the Jesus Puzzle, but I've not read it.
I've seen the wiki entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_of_Isaiah

Since MJ reference that work so often, as the cornerstone of the mythical Jesus theory of sublunar realms that I have this wiki tidbpit

"# The second part of the book (chapters 6-11) is referred to as the Vision of Isaiah and describes an angel-assisted journey, prior to the events of the first part of the book, by Isaiah through the Seven Heavens. In its surviving form it is clearly written from a Christian perspective, concentrating on Jesus' death and his resurrection, and especially the ascension of Jesus. The birth of Jesus is curiously described as being preceded by Jesus descending through each of the heavens, disguising himself as an angel appropriate to each as he goes."

I've not read it but assuming arguendo it is powerful evidence for MJ there's still a problem, I don't see how a late second century work is any evidence to what happened (or did not happen) around 30 CE.

Early Christian writings
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ascension.html

dates the composition at 150-200 CE.

The date of Ascension_of_Isaiah is about the same time, if not later, than the infancy gospels and Gospel of Judas and Phillip, all of which contain allegedly historical material of a historical Jesus. Iraneus himself used the idea of apostolic succession connecting his mentor in an unbroken historical chain to a historical Jesus at the same time, if not earlier than when Ascension of Isaiah was written.

IF you want to allow a late second century work as evidence for MJ, I see no reason to also not include the prior mention works, as well as church fathers, as evidence for HJ.

The other issue is the purpose of this work: if it is late second century, as with the Gospel of Judas and the Apocryphon of John are gnostic works, and from what I've heard of Ascension, its also gnostically flavored "vision"

I don't know if Iraneus cites this work in against heresies, but he does Apocryphon of John and Gospel of Judas, and the gnostics are famous for having "visions" of "aeons" and "angels" and realms, from the true God radiating out the pleoroma. From the wiki article it sounds that Ascension of Isiah is in the same genre, and therefore, useless as evidence for Jesus mythicism.

So two major documents for Doherty Jesus mythicism in his Jesus Puzzle website, Odes of Solomon and Ascension of Isiah are useless in establishing Jesus non-existence.

GakuseiDon

Ben C Smith created a thread on this subject also:
The location of the events in Ascension of Isaiah 9.14

gnosis92

Thanks

Niall Armstrong

I'm sure others can answer this better than myself, but that hasn't stopped me before. So let's start with a clumsy resume:

My reading of the use of tAoI in tJP is that the former, primarily, shows how Jesus was, by someone, conceived as descending and ascending through a multi-layered heaven. This in itself is interesting, as it shows a connection between Christianity and the concept of a multilayered heaven, and devils in (on?) the firmament. This is generally in agreement with the (middle-) platonic/aristotelian concepts of unalterable high heavens and changeable "sub-lunar sphere", and also with descriptions in the Epistles of several heavens and Jesus’ descent and ascent. So tAoI gives us a mythical “landscape”, which fits both the ideas of the time, and Paul’s own description of Jesus activities, where an “unearthly” death may be envisioned. (Though many MJ’ers do not see the need to absolutely specify where Jesus was to have died, as most of the mystical religions of the time seem rather vague about it as well.:angel: )

Some might say that this is mere 2nd century gnosticism, and of dubious value for considering 1st century Christianity (but even if it was gnostic, it could be relevant. Who could rule out a relation?) But the text itself is (ironically?) multilayered as well. The first part, the Martyrdom of Isaiah, has very little Christian in it at all (though this Jewish fascination for martyrdom is a rather late phenomenon, I believe.)
When we finally get to the exciting bits of the story, in Ch 11, of Jesus' descent (to earth or elsewhere?) the texts diverge. The Ethiopic document gives us a curious primitive Nativity (which I sometimes wonder couldn’t have been the inspiration for both Matthew and Luke…), while the 2nd Latin/Slavonic documents jump straight to a short crucifixion story. Now the funny thing is that the whole descent-ascent is foretold in Ch 9, where this earthly story isn’t mentioned. To Doherty (and those that he’s able to convince) this suggests that the various elaborations of Ch 11 are later interpolations upon an original text without an earthly crucifixion. By relying on Ch 9 instead of (the possibly interpolated) Ch 11, we get a “gospel” that could have been preached by followers of the Mythical Christ. The various stages of revision and later abandonment fit very well with the scenario of a religion growing out Jewish texts, gradually adopting to an historical narrative (perhaps GMark), and final irrelevance (as the other Gospels flesh out the historical narrative, and give a much more entertaining story)

Apologies if this “AoI for Dummies” simplifies things too much! But it’s merely meant to show how tAoI can support the MJ-theory. If I’ve done any mistakes, please correct me, or give a better resume!

Otherwise, I have to recommend everyone to read the actual text (it does start rather boringly, but picks up and isn’t bad considering the genre), as well as Doherty’s previous elaborations on his theory.

It does seem rash to open such a bombastic thread title for a theme you admit you haven't read anything about. You could have called the thread “Can the Ascension of Isaiah really be used to support the MJ thesis?” which would signaled something more akin to humble curiosity, rather than dogmatic ignorance.:devil:

gnosis92

I am making the case on the dating of the work

Early Christian writings
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ascension.html

dates the composition at 150-200 CE.

The date of Ascension_of_Isaiah is about the same time, if not later, than the infancy gospels and Gospel of Judas and Phillip, all of which contain allegedly historical material of a historical Jesus. Iraneus himself used the idea of apostolic succession connecting his mentor in an unbroken historical chain to a historical Jesus at the same time, if not earlier than when Ascension of Isaiah was written.

Solo

It's worth while noting before pumping AoI for any cause, that the document is a naive fraud pretending to be an ~900-year old document prophesizing events (real or imaginary) ~200 years before the (first) writing of it took place. Whether IoA was "derived from" or "modeled after" or simply ripped off the Enoch genre of the IT heavens travelogue, to someone who has no big cause in harrassing church ladies or Earl Doherty, it won't make much difference. One may want to ponder where the "sub-lunar realm" would be in an old Jewish occultic scheme of seven heavens, but the answer to that is as unlikely as finding a room for a skeptic in Theresa Avila's El Castillo Interior

Quiz of the day: name the verse in the Bible with a numbered heaven :huh:

Jiri

gnosis92

I've not read Theresa's Inner Castle but I see that Christian Mystics talk about it (along with Meister Eckhart, THomas Merton, Emmanuel Swedenborg etc)

Have you read it and is it worthwhilte read?

Solo

Oh yes, on both counts. It's a must read if you are interested in the mystical Jewish traditions of Hekalot (on which the Ethiopian Enoch was built) and their Christian continuation. The Interior Castle (or via: amazon.co.uk) is readily available. If you don't mind a little bit of Catholic propaganda, I have also found Thomas Dubai's Fire Within (or via: amazon.co.uk) a good intro into the teachings of the two great Carmelite figures.

Jiri

Malachi151

2 Corinthians 12:
1 I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3 And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4 was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.

Malachi151

The importance of it, if nothing else, is in showing that ideas such as this existed at this time.

The Ascension of Isaiah fit with stories like The Book of Enoch, and so even if the parts that deal with Jesus were written in the 2nd century, they still tell us something of how people at that time thought.

It's not proof positive of anything, it's just one more element to add to a long list of other elements.

Doherty's use of it is perhaps a stretch, though it is possible, but it doesn't need to go that far in order to be relevant.

I personally view chapters 1-5 as the more important, because they are agreed to be pre-Christian, and they still foreshadow a lot of the elements of the Jesus story.