Day: February 13, 2011

This post looks at M. A. Knibb’s discussion of the date of the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah. It is taken from The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (v.2) edited by James H. Charlesworth, published 1985.

I will skip here Knibb’s discussion of the various component parts that are generally thought to have been stitched together to make the whole document of eleven chapters. The main sections were discussed by R. H. Charles, and Knibb does refine some of Charles’ conclusions about these, but this can be bypassed for purposes of the discussion on dating the Ascension.

As with my previous post, the links to the Ascension, and copies of some of the singled out parts of the document, are found in the first post in this series: The Date of the Ascension of Isaiah (1). Continue reading “Date of Ascension of Isaiah (3: M.A. Knibb)”

I am not happy with my previous post. I had intended it to cover the arguments for dating by R.H. Charles, but the post only covered those particular paragraphs (and related references from other pages) that explicitly discussed the possible dates of the parts and whole of the (Martyrdom and) Ascension of Isaiah. But there is much more that I did not touch on yet that necessarily comes into play when making assessments about dates. The “primitiveness” or otherwise of specific titles, terms and theological ideas is also of significance. These must also be considered as part of any assessment in arriving of a likely period of composition, and the observations made of these details are important alongside other discussions explicitly addressing a date.

Maybe, if I can keep up with this personal commitment I have set myself, I will be able in another post address some of these aspects as well.

But till then, I will continue with the original plan to post various scholarly views on the date of the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah and its respective parts.

This post outlines the arguments found in The Apocryphal Old Testament edited by H. F. D. Sparks and published 1984. In his preface Sparks discusses the challenges of how this work came to be in part a successor publication to the two volumes by R. H. Charles. Sparks uses the same translation of the Ascension by R. H. Charles, but revised by J. M. T. Barton.

See the previous posts for links to the text and copies of independent sections within the text. Continue reading “Date of the Ascension of Isaiah (2: H.F.D. Sparks)”