EarlDoherty

Krosero,

For now (and maybe only) I am simply going to make one general comment. While your posts are always carefully thought out at great length--something I can't really complain about, since my own are often guilty of the same thing--they are perhaps too "thought out". I don't think a document like the Ascension can bear that kind of minute dissection, with the hope or expectation that everything is going to fall into place in some consistent manner.

For example, you note that in chapter 10:29-31, the writer seems to be making a sub-distinction within the sublunary sphere of a "firmament" and the "air" below it, since the Son seemingly descends into the firmament where Satan dwells (and he gives a password), then further descends into the air where "angels of the air" dwell and are doing violence to one another (and he does not give a password). You attempt to draw some very fine distinctions and conclusions from this apparent division of the sphere.

And yet, this is inconsistent with the 'ascent' portion of the story, in chapter 7. There, the first step recounted is "up into the firmament", and it is in the firmament that both Satan and the warring angels are to be found. In other words, the document as a whole is garbled in many ways, containing inconsistencies and contradictions. When we see the many differences between the various manuscripts, we see further evidence that arguing on the basis of this or that word or this or that phrase being present, is almost a fool's errand. And I know I've been somewhat guilty of doing that myself. All we can really rely on are overall patterns, and perhaps a comparison of individual points found here and there.

Is the difference between chapters 7 and 10 in the structure of the sublunary realm due to two different editors? Who knows? Is it due to the vagaries of a single author's concentration? Who knows? We find the same sort of inconsistency between parts of Revelation, for example, yet most think the document is by a single author. Is there some significance in the "your form" rather than "their form" as you point out, though you also note that many of the "your form"s are missing on other manuscripts? It is really impossible to say. We can note things like the seams on either side of the alleged interpolation, but all we can really do is speculate on them. I would never presume to base my whole case on a single document, certainly one in as confused and confusing a state as the Ascension, and so you will perhaps understand that I have little desire to engage in lengthy and time-consuming debates about the significance of this or that detail, simply because everything in it is so uncertain.

(I am reminded of, and would compare this to, the sometimes endless argument that goes on over Galatians 1:19's "the brother of the Lord", with specific focus on the presence of the word "the". Well, we just have no way of knowing whether that word was in the original, given that we have nothing remotely near to an original manuscript, given that the NT record shows all sorts of editing and amendment even in the later versions we do have, and given the well-known phenomenon that scribes often change (consciously or not) passages to conform to the most commonly known version, and so on. That sort of uncertainty, seems to me, to exist in spades in the Ascension.)

I freely admit there are anomalies, and interpretations are by no means secure. What I find most 'convincing' about the Ascension is how it fits into the broader documentary picture, how it suggests that at some stage, it conveyed a system of belief in a descending god who was sacrificed in the lower heavens, in keeping with related pictures presented in other documents, both inside and outside the NT, and in keeping with Middle Platonic philosophy, as garbled as that, too, is presented to us in the surviving record. Remember that this garbled state of affairs in both is almost inevitable considering that neither subject bore any relation to reality, and would thus present a challenge to any author trying to create something that made any consistent sense, especially to our minds.

You make some good points (as did Don) which might merit some closer examination, but right now it would take more time and energy than I can spare. Perhaps in a couple of days I can read through your recent posts and choose a few points to comment on at greater length.

andrewcriddle

I suggested earlier that the real problem with 11:2-22 in the Ethiopic is the section 11:2-18, the birth and growth to adulthood of the Son of God which has no parallels in 3:13-4:22 or 9:14-16 and 10:8.

IMO most of 11:19-22 may well be part of the earliest version of the Ascension ie the original of 11:2-22 may have been similar to (I've italicised what I think are likely expansions in the Ethiopic)

Andrew Criddle

TedM

Andrew, that makes a lot of sense to me. It restores 4 important concepts mentioned in the prior chapters, which one would expect at this point in the document:

1. He would be in the form of Isaiah's flesh
2. He would not be recognized
3. He would be crucified
4. He would defeat the angel of death

And it also appears to do so in a way which one might expect for a prophecy--real or fake--without historical details. It is still missing the ascension along with the dead, however, but it is a lot closer than just the one verse found in the Slav/Lat version. I still wonder why those other verses would have been removed though.... That's a mystery I can't make sense of--why would the lines with such important concepts have been removed?

ted

Rick Sumner

How do you suggest we differentiate between a "document like the ascension," which can't "bear that kind of minute dissection," with other documents that, presumably--the exception proves the rule and all that--can withstand it? At what point, and based on what criteria, can we tell that something has been "over-exegeted" (for lack of a better term)?

I ask because the response runs the risk of becoming something of an ad hoc without some sort of measure behind it, yet I can't seem to think of one. Krosero, for example, does not think he is crossing the line in his reading of AoF, yet you (and myself as well, for that matter--I generally think the more complicated a reading is, the less likely it was intended) think he is, yet I can't put my finger on a reason for it other than the whim of the exegete. In some instances, there may be other indicators--for example, Vorkosigan has debated at length that his exegesis of Mark is the natural result of reading the text, while others suggest that interior clues, such as Mark's grammar, preclude this--yet in many others there are no such clues, or the clues themselves are as subject to interpretation as the reading itself. See any debate on the proper reading of Shakespeare, or even the more contemporary Steinbeck, for excellent examples of this.

So how do we overcome it becoming the ad hoc? What measures would you suggest we use in an effort to overcome the ruling being based on nothing more than personal biases?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

TedM

That's a great question Rick. I guess that is what certain fields of study attempt to do, but it seems to me that since we can never actually get into the author's mind we won't be able to tell if a break in thought--slight or large, an illogical conclusion, or even a contradiction is due to the author or an interpolator. On the other hand I suppose some things can be reasonably assumed. For example, a statement followed immediately by the opposite statement might be reasonably assumed to have been the result of an interpolation or mistake in copying, etc..

ted

krosero

Hi Rick. These are good questions, and I would welcome more answers from Earl or yourself. What Earl has already said implies that a document with a pre-history (a history before our existing manuscripts) as uncertain as that of the Ascension cannot be dissected too much, at least not in the hope of making sure conclusions.

But I do want to suggest that my reading of the text is not more complex than Earl's. I hold the same opinion as you, namely that if you have to propose a reading of a text which is too complex, then you've probably wandered away from the original author's meaning.

If length means anything, my first post was shorter than Earl's opening post. I wrote a lot more in a post responding to another thread about the firmament. It's also in that post that I included an argument which seemed to me, even when I wrote it, a possible instance of over-analysis -- something that Earl says I do, somewhat similar to your phrase, "over-exegeted." I'm referring to my argument about an apparent two-step ascent by Isaiah into the 6th heaven, and an identical one into the 7th, as a clue to reconcile the contradiction between an apparent two-tiered division of the firmament in chapter 10 and Isaiah's one-step ascent into the firmament in chapter 7. This is the sort of contradiction, if I read Earl correctly, that is not worth thinking too much about, since it might just represent no more than the vagaries of a single author's concentration or an uncertain history of interpolations; and there is no point in trying to make a single document hang together the way we would like. If that is all that Earl is saying, I have no problem with it as far as it goes -- though I do wonder whether an appeal to vagaries and uncertainties has been made because a two-tiered division of the firmament in chapter 10, as I argued, would sink the idea of a crucifixion above the earth. Wondering such things is necessary, I think, when we ask about the dividing line between an analysis fairly judged and one dismissed in an ad-hoc manner or on a personal whim.

Regardless of that question, I do object that when Earl spoke of over-analysis and of my drawing "very fine distinctions", he mentioned this argument of mine about two-step ascents, which was not integral to my whole argument, and added what I said about "your form," presumably as another example of an anomaly not worth investigating further; he mentioned the fact that some instances of "your form" are missing from some manuscripts. But my argument about "your form" is quite simple, and does not involve trying to harmonize a contradiction, since there is none. As I pointed out, "your form" appears in 9:13 in all the manuscripts. This fact is integral to my argument as a whole. Two other instances of "your form" appear in one manuscript tradition but not the abbreviated Lat/Slav version. It takes no complex argument, or even analysis, to point out the instances of "your form" and the manuscripts that they belong to; all it takes is thorough reading.

What I'm proposing as the meaning of the original author is simple, despite my tendency, perhaps, to wrap it in a lot of words. I propose that the author described a descent all the way to the earth, with an earthly crucifixion. Nothing is said in the instruction to the Son about the earth's surface, but neither is anything said about a crucifixion in the heavens. Later authors either reproduced or revised the original narrative; Andrew Criddle presents a good argument about certain verses, concerning the Son's early life on earth, being interpolated. Any contradiction about whether the firmament was unified or divided might be explained, as Earl suggested, by the vagaries of a single author's concentration, or by a history of interpolations.

I actually prefer the former of these last two options, because the contradictory phrases in chapters 7 and 10 appear in all the manuscripts -- in two apparently independent manuscript traditions -- and if this sort of statement means nothing, then it surely means nothing to do as Earl does and to construct an argument based on what appears in one set of manuscripts and what does not appear in another.

So if Earl is suggesting not merely that my argument about two-step ascents is an overly dissected attempt at harmonizing an uncertain document, but also that the presence of "your form" in all manuscripts means little, then I surely don't know why we have to consider his very specific proposals about what is in the manuscripts and what was in the original version.

So I would like to hear more from him about what why his proposals fall short of over-analysis and otherwise qualify as good analysis. He said something I liked very much, about his posts often having the same failings he attributed to mine, so I do wonder how specifically he can identify the difference.

I for one think that a proposal in which the specified crucifixion does not appear in any current manuscripts because it was excised, and in which the specified crucifixion contradicts what all the manuscripts say about "your form" and the Son's sojourn on earth, is a complicated proposal. It posits an excision, and it needs to offer explanations for the passages contradicting its crucifixion. If the explanations boil down to orthodox Christianity's rubbing out all mentions of unearthly crucifixions, then we have left the text, and have begun adding complex meta-arguments about history.