Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah

The book Ascension of Isaiah is a pseudegraphical Christian text. Theories as to the date of its composition place it in a range from the late 1st century AD to the beginning of the 3rd century AD. As for its authorship, it is believed almost universally to be a compilation of several texts completed by an unknown Christian scribe.

It is generally believed that the text is composed of three different sections written at different times, by different authors. The earliest section, regarding chapters 3:13-4:22, was composed at about the end of the first century A.D. or perhaps early second century and is believed to be a text of Jewish origins which was later on redacted by Christian scribes. The date of the Vision of Isaiah is rather more difficult to determine, but it is no older than the third century, since Saint Jerome (c. 347-420 AD) cites a fragment of the work in some of his writings, but from internal evidence it seems that the text is to be placed before the end of the second century AD. The whole work was on a later date assembled as M.A. Kinibb writes:

It is not known when exactly the three sections of the Ascension were combined. The Greek fragment (from the 5th-6th cent.), the palimpsest giving the text of the fragments of the first Latin translation (likewise from the 5th-6th cent.), and the Ethiopic translation (which was made some time during the 4th-6th cent.) all presuppose the existence of the complete work. But the character of the mistakes in the Greek fragment and the Latin palimpsest suggests that the complete work had already been in existence for some time when these manuscripts were copied. It thus seems likely that the three sections of the Ascension were brought together in the third or fourth century A.D., and this is confirmed by the fact that Jerome seems to have known the complete book. It is possible that there were two stages in the process, first the combination of 3:13-4:22 with the Martyrdom, and second the combination of the enlarged Martyrdom with the Vision.

Knibb thus dates the whole text as being written between AD 150 and 200 but assembled at a later time. Richard Carrier gives an earlier possible date of the first or second century:

Though extant manuscripts date from the fifth to the twelfth century, all the evidence we have for this text and within it indicates it was originally composed sometime in the first or second century CE. The earliest version in fact was probably composed around the very same time as the earliest canonical Gospels were being written.

The book has three main sections:

Elements of the Ascension of Isaiah are paralleled in other Jewish and Christian writings. The method of Isaiah's death (sawn in half by Manasseh) is agreed upon by both the Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud, and is probably alluded to by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (11:37). The demon Beliar appears in quite a number of apocryphal works, including the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Sibylline Books. Finally, Isaiah's journey through the Seven Heavens parallels that of Enoch's in the Second Book of Enoch.

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