The Ascension of Isaiah

The Martyrdom of Isaiah is a Jewish work which has come down to us as part of a larger Christian composition known as the Ascension of Isaiah. The Ascension consists of three separate writings: (1) the Martyrdom itself (the basic material in AscenIs 1:1–3:12+5:1–16). (2) An account of a vision seen by Isaiah (AscenIs 3:13–4:22) to which the title the Testament of Hezekiah has sometimes been given. The contents of this Christian writing are summarized below on p. 190. (3) A Christian work known as the Vision of Isaiah (AscenIs 6–11), which describes Isaiah's journey through the seven heavens. While in the seventh heaven he sees the descent to earth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord. It is this account of Isaiah's journey, or ascension, through the heavens which gives the title to the whole work. Here, however, we are only concerned with the Martyrdom of Isaiah.

Textual history

The textual history of the Martyrdom, like that of the Ascension as a whole, is complex; for full details see the introduction to the translation of this work in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. ii. The Martyrdom was apparently composed in Hebrew, but no trace of this has survived. It was subsequently translated into Greek, while the Christian portions of the Ascension were composed in Greek; of this Greek version only a fragment covering 2:4–4:4 is known to exist.