This "lost scripture" focuses on the bibllical prophet Isaiah and contains traditions about Jesus not recorded in the Gospels. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli discuss the Ascension of Isaiah, when it was written, what it says, and its relationship to the Bible.
Jimmy Akin Podcast
Lost Scriptures: The Martyrdom of Isaiah (The Ascension of Isaiah; First Century Apocalypse) - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World
Jimi Aiken's Mysterious World is brought to you by the Star Quest Production Network and is made possible by our many generous patrons. If you'd like to support the podcast, please visit SQPN.com/give. You're listening to episode 332 of Jimi Aiken's Mysterious World where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason. In this episode, we're talking about the Ascension of Isaiah. I'm Don Betanelli and joining me today is Jimi Aiken. Hey, Jimi. Howdy, Don. The Early Christian Church produced a large amount of literature, but most of the works the first Christians wrote have been lost. One that survives is an apocalypse known as the Ascension of Isaiah. It focuses on the biblical prophet Isaiah, who lived in the 8th century BC, but it contains traditions about Jesus that are not recorded in the Gospels. So what is the Ascension of Isaiah? When was it written? And what does it say? That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of Jimi Aiken's Mysterious World. Jimi, today we're doing another in our series about so-called "lost scriptures." Let's start by reminding people what that means. Well, for a start, it doesn't mean that these books are real scriptures, just that we have evidence that some people in the past considered them to be scripture, so they tell us more about what people believe than what's historically accurate. They're also lost in the sense that because they didn't make it into the Bible, most people forgot about them, but scholars knew about them, or at least rediscovered them at some point. So how will we be proceeding with this mystery? This time we're looking at a first-century Christian work called "The Ascension of Isaiah," and it falls into two parts. The first five chapters of the book deal with the martyrdom of the prophet Isaiah, and the last six chapters deal with his ascension through the seven heavens. Both parts contain substantial prophecies about Jesus, his church, and the end of the world. So today we'll be looking at the first part, or the martyrdom of Isaiah's section, and next week we'll be looking at the second part, "The Ascension of Isaiah Proper." We'll also have some concluding remarks about the book from the faith perspective. Then let's talk about the book. What should we know about it? For a start, it's an apocalypse. Apocalypsees are a kind of literature in which one of several things happens. First, a prophet may get visions about what's going to happen in the future. Second, the prophet may get a tour of the cosmos or the invisible world. And third, the prophet may get both visions of the future and a tour of the cosmos. In "The Ascension of Isaiah," both of these happen. The eighth-century BC prophet gets a tour of the seven heavens, and he receives visions about the future coming of Jesus Christ, who is referred to as "the beloved" in the book since he's God's beloved son. Isaiah also gets visions about the end of the world. Isaiah lived the eighth century BC, but when was the book itself written? There's a debate about that. In fact, for much of the 20th century, many scholars assumed that it's actually two books. As I mentioned, the first part deals with the martyrdom of Isaiah, and the second part deals with his ascension through the heavens. So you'll sometimes see the book called "The Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah." And many people proposed different dates for those two books, with the martyrdom being one book and the ascension being another. In fact, this was part of a trend in scholarship in the 19th and 20th centuries, where lots of people were super interested in trying to dissolve books down into their component parts, to dissect them and then see how the final editor or redactor put them together. But they went overboard on this. They adopted a position whereby basically every ancient book had to be a composite that had a complex prehistory. And this didn't allow ancient writers to really be authors, just editors of other people's material. Fortunately, that trend has somewhat peaked and begun to recede. And in the 1980s, scholars took a new look at the Ascension of Isaiah and began concluding, "Nah, this is really one work." The author, no doubt, used traditions that he was aware of, but it's really the product of a single author, which, frankly, should be our default position when reading a book. This makes it possible to assign a date for the work as a whole, but there's a debate about when that should be. A lot of people will say in the second or the first century, but I've done extensive research on this topic. In fact, I wrote a 22,000-word monograph that I haven't published on the subject, all dealing just with the date that the book was written. So I'll just tell you my conclusion. The Ascension of Isaiah is one of the earliest books outside the New Testament, and it was written before some of the books of the New Testament. For example, it appears to be earlier than the letter to the Hebrews and the book of Revelation. Specifically, it appears to be written in the year AD67 plus or minus a year. As we go through the text of the book, I'll tell you why that's the case. If you want to know the reason in detail, including the counter arguments and why arguments for other dates are wrong, you'd need to read the whole 22,000-word monograph. But think about it, we're getting a window into early Christian literature that contains traditions not recorded in the gospels, and that contains prophetic views from before the book of Revelation. So how cool is that? So who in the ancient world regarded this book as scripture? This is less clear than some other works from the period. However, it's clear that the author regarded it as scriptural in nature, since he's trying to communicate prophecies about things he believe will be coming true in his near future. And the book is reportedly found in some Ethiopian Bibles. In fact, it's due to Ethiopian Christians that we still have the book. They're the ones that preserved it. There are some sources that say it's regarded as canonical among Ethiopian Orthodox. However, it's not part of their standard canon. They also have a broader canon with fuzzy boundaries, but it doesn't appear to me that it's generally treated as canonical in Ethiopian Orthodox circles today and not from what I've been able to discover. I understand that the book also has a connection to other Jewish and Christian traditions that we should mention. What's that? Hebrews 11 contains a famous list of people and events from the Old Testament. It's kind of a hall of fame chapter in which many great heroes are commemorated, including Abraham, Moses, David, and many others. Towards the end, it refers to events that are not as well known. In verse 37, it describes the sufferings of the righteous in former days and says, "They were stoned, they were sawn into, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, illchers." We can find examples of many of these types of suffering in the Old Testament, but there is one we can't be in sawn in two. That doesn't happen to anyone in the Bible, so what's the author referring to? Well, the early Christian writer Origin says, "Some of these things have been preserved in the apocryphal books. For example, we shall give this story about Isaiah, witnessed by the epistle to the Hebrews, but not written in any of the canonical books of the Old Testament." The specific apocryphal book that Origin is referring to is the Ascension of Isaiah, and it does record him being sawn in two. There are also other Jewish and Christian traditions that state that Isaiah was martyred by being sawn in two, but in different ways than the Ascension records. The Lexum Bible Dictionary says, "In the Talmud, Isaiah hides himself in a cedar tree, or is swallowed by it, and is subsequently sawn in two by King Manasseh." Two Targum Jonathan manuscripts on Isaiah 66 record that Manasseh becomes outraged by Isaiah's prophecies of Babylonian destruction. A nearby tree swallows Isaiah, and Manasseh servants cut the tree, and Isaiah in half was the saw. Tertullian and Justin Martyr allude to the legend of Isaiah's death, with Justin Martyr specifying that the saw used to kill Isaiah was made of wood. Origin also notes the tradition of Isaiah's death, and provides various reasons for it. Did him miss the blind, circa 83-50, references both the traditions of the death of Isaiah and his ascension? So the ascension of Isaiah is to happen into a broader pool of traditions about how Isaiah died. Do you think it's likely that he was actually sawed into by King Manasseh? It's hard to say, even if Isaiah was not sawn into, that wouldn't say anything about Hebrews, since the author doesn't say anything about who was sawn into. The early church fathers are merely inferring that it was Isaiah based on traditions they do about. But the earliest traditions we have about him being killed in this way are in the first century, and that's a long way from the eighth century when Isaiah lived. That's a pretty long time for a tradition we have no written evidence for surviving, though it's not impossible. Then let's start looking at the ascension of Isaiah itself. You said that the first part deals with the martyrdom of the prophet. How does that happen? The first part of the book spans five chapters, so chapters one to five, and it begins in the 26th year of the Jewish king Hezekiah that would correspond to 690 BC. We're told that in this year Hezekiah summoned several people for a meeting. They included his own son and successor, Manasseh. They included Isaiah, and they included Isaiah's son, Joseph, who is referred to in the Bible as sheer jasim. The purpose of the meeting is to give Prince Manasseh a record of several prophecies that had been previously received. One of these prophecies had been a vision that were told King Hezekiah himself had back when he was sick in the 15th year of his reign, or 701 BC. That illness is recorded in 2 Kings 20, and originally Hezekiah was scheduled to die, but he repented and turned to the Lord, and God granted him another 15 years of life. At this point, Hezekiah only has four years left, so he's set in his house in order. He wants to make sure that his son is a good king, so he's going to give him a record of key prophecies, and he wants Isaiah, and Isaiah's son, they're his witnesses. When it comes to the prophecy that he himself received, we're told, "It concerns the eternal judgments and the torments of Gehenna, and the prince of this world, and his angels, and his authorities, and his powers." Another of the prophecies that he hands over to Manasseh was seen by Isaiah himself six years earlier. "It concerns the judgment of the angels, and concerning the destruction of this world, and concerning the robes of the saints in their going out, and concerning their transformation, and the persecution and ascension of the beloved." The beloved, you will recall, is how the author refers to Christ, the son of God. So, good king Hezekiah is given commands to his son based on these prophecies, but there's a problem. While Hezekiah was giving his commands, with Yosib the son of Isaiah standing by, Isaiah said to Hezekiah the king, and not only in the presence of Manasseh did he say it to him, "As the Lord lives, whose name has not been transmitted to this world, and as the beloved of my Lord lives, and as the Spirit which speaks in me lives, all these commands and these words will have no effect on Manasseh your son, and through the deeds of his hands, tormented in body, I will depart. And Samal Melchira will serve Manasseh and will do everything He wishes, and He will be a follower of Baliar rather than of me. He will cause many in Jerusalem and Judah to desert the true faith, and Baliar will dwell in Manasseh, and by his hands I will be sawed in half." So Isaiah says, "None of this is going to work. Manasseh is going to be a wicked king, and he's going to kill me by sawing me in half." Bad news. You'll also notice that Isaiah has a Trinitarian reference here. He refers to the Lord, that's God the Father, to the beloved of the Lord, that's God the Son, and to the Spirit that speaks in Him, that's God the Holy Spirit, which is a clear sign that this was written in the Christian Age as the Trinity was not clearly revealed in the Old Testament period. He also dropped several names for the devil. One of them is Baliar, which also appears in 2 Corinthians 6, 15. Another is Samuel, another is Malchira, and later he also uses the name Matanbukus, all of these just being alternate names for the devil. So he says Manasseh is going to be a follower of the devil, and he will cause many in Jerusalem to desert the true faith, which the historical Manasseh would do by reintroducing idolatry. Also of interest is that Manasseh was only 12 years old when he became king, and that's still four years away. So at the time of this meeting, Manasseh is only eight years old, yet the prophet says his future is already known, and he's going to be a bad guy. Hezekiah weeps when he hears this, and he thinks in his heart about killing his son. But Isaiah tells him that the beloved has made this plan ineffective, and that Manasseh will be king. And it came about that after Hezekiah had died, and Manasseh had become king, Manasseh did not remember the commands of Hezekiah his father, but forgot them. And Samuel dwelt in Manasseh and clung closely to him. And Manasseh abandoned the service of the Lord of his father, and he served Satan and his angels and his powers. And he turned his father's house, which had been in the presence of Hezekiah away from the words of wisdom and the service of the Lord. Manasseh turned them away so that they served Beliar. For the angel of iniquity who rules the world is Beliar, whose name is Matan Bukus. So there we have the introduction of that extra name for the devil. Well, in response to this, Isaiah decides to get out of dodge. First, he goes to Bethlehem, but things are bad there too. So then he goes and lives on a mountain in the wilderness, and with him are a bunch of other prophets, including Joel and Habakkuk. All of them were clothed in sackcloth, and all of them were prophets. They had nothing with them, but were destitute. And they all lamented bitterly over the going astray of Israel. And they had nothing to eat except wild herbs, which they gathered from the mountains. And when they had cooked them, they ate them with Isaiah the prophet, and they dwelt on the mountains and on the hills for two years of days. But now a new character enters our story. His name is Belchira, and he's a Samaritan and a false prophet. Belchira finds out where Isaiah is living in the wilderness, and he goes and accuses him to King Manasseh. Among other things, he says that Isaiah claims to be greater than Moses, since Moses could only see God from behind in Exodus 33. But Isaiah saw him from the front sitting on his throne in Isaiah 6. He also says that Isaiah has compared Jerusalem and Judah to Sodom and Gomorrah, which Isaiah did in Isaiah 110. So Belchira is using things that Isaiah really did say against him, but he's twisting them to make them sound bad, like Isaiah did not claim to be greater than Moses. He just reported seeing God in a vision, whereas Moses' experience of God was in a theophany or appearance of God in nature rather than just in a vision. In any event, all of this pleases Manasseh, so he has his men go and sees Isaiah. We now get an extended explanation of why Belire was so keen on having Isaiah arrested, and the explanation takes the form of a vision that the prophet had received. So this is the first major prophetic section of the book. We're told that through Isaiah, there had been revealed the coming of the beloved from the seventh heaven and his transformation and his descent in the form into which he must be transformed, namely the form of a man, and the persecution with which he would be persecuted, and the torments with which the children of Israel must torment him, and the coming of the twelve disciples, and the teaching, and that before the Sabbath he must be crucified on a tree, and be crucified with wicked men, and that he would be buried in a grave, and the twelve who were with him would be offended at him, and the guards who would guard the grave, and the descent of the angel of the church which is in the heavens, whom he will summon in the last days, and that the angel of the Holy Spirit and Michael, the chief of the Holy Angels, will open his grave on the third day, and that beloved sitting on their shoulders will come forth and send out his twelve disciples, and they will teach all nations and every tongue the resurrection of the beloved, and those who believe in his cross will be saved, and in his ascension to the seventh heaven from where he came, and that many who believe in him will speak through the Holy Spirit, and there will be many signs and miracles in those days. This is clearly a description of the ministry of Christ, the beloved, and the early days of the church as the author understands them. The material is also setting us up for material that's going to be, that we're going to read later in the book, like the beloved's descent from the seventh heaven, which is the highest heaven, as the author's conceptualizes things. This section mentions particular things that are also recorded in the Gospels, like Jesus being crucified with wicked men. The two criminals he was crucified between, and how the twelve were offended at him, meaning they abandoned him during his arrest, and the guards that were set over the grave in Matthew, and how the twelve disciples would speak in tongues and evangelize the nations. Notice that it says the beloved will be crucified before the Sabbath, which means on a Friday, and that's something that's mentioned in all four Gospels. But we also get material that's not in the Gospels, like Jesus being carried out of his tomb on the shoulders of angels. And as we'll see, it appears that the author of the Ascension of Isaiah either did not know the four canonical Gospels, or he didn't consider them authoritative. So what we're getting are early Christian traditions that were circulated outside of the four Gospels. One that is mentioned here is that the Holy Spirit, or angel of the Holy Spirit, as the author calls him, and Michael, were the two angels that were recorded to be at the tomb in Luke and John. The author says that they opened the grave, whereas in Matthew, only one angel is there to open the grave. And the author says that they carry Jesus out of the grave on their shoulders. This tradition also appears in a second century work known as the Gospel of Peter, which indicates that two men supported Christ as he came out of the tomb. It doesn't name them, but it says that their heads reach to the heavens, which hints that they were angels. And this is far from the last extra canonical tradition about Jesus that we're going to encounter in the book. So be on the lookout for more. The vision then turns to what happened later, but still in first century Christian history. It envisions Jesus' second comment happening in the first century, as we'll see. And it says, "After words at his approach, his disciples will abandon the teaching of the Twelve Apostles, and their faith, and their love, and their purity. And there will be much contention that is coming, and it is approach. And in those days, there will be many who will love office, although lacking wisdom. And there will be many wicked elders and shepherds who wrong their sheep. And they will be rapacious because they do not have holy shepherds. And many will exchange the glory of the robes of the saints, for the robes of those who love money. And there will be much respect of persons in those days, and lovers of the glory of this world. And there will be many slanderers and much vain glory at the approach of the Lord. And the Holy Spirit will withdraw from many. And in those days, there will not be many prophets, nor those who speak reliable words, except one here and there in different places. Because of the spirit of error and of fornication, and of vain glory, and of the love of money, which there will be among those who are said to be servants of that one, and among those who receive that one. And among the shepherds and the elders, there will be great hatred towards one another. For there will be great jealousy in the last days, for everyone will speak whatever pleases him in his own eyes, and they will make ineffective the prophecy of the prophets who were before me. In my vision also, they will make ineffective, in order that they may speak what bursts out of their heart. So Isaiah says that there will be bad times in the church before the second comment, and this coheres with various passages in the New Testament. Like when Jesus questions whether he'll find faith on the earth in Luke 18, or when he says that the love of many will grow cold in Matthew 24. Or when Paul says in 1 Timothy 4 that in the last days, people will give heed to the teaching of demons, or in 2 Timothy 4, where he says that they will gather false teachers who will say what their itch and ears want to hear. So bad times. But now we're going to hit the part of the book that contains the clues that tell us exactly when it was written. And before we get to that, we'd like to take a moment now to thank our patrons who make this show possible, including Terrence G, Remedios S, Claire H, Nathan K, and Blake N. Their generous donations at sqpn.com/give make it possible for us to continue Jimmy Yakin's mysterious world and all the shows at Starquest. And you can join them by visiting sqpn.com/give. Jimmy Yakin's mysterious world is also brought to you by DeliverContext.com, offering top-brand contact lenses at always low prices. With free delivery, visit DeliverContext.com and by Rosary Army, featuring award-winning Catholic podcasts, Rosary Resources, Videos, and the School of Mary Online Community, Prayer, and Learning Platform. Learn how to make them, pray them, and give them away while growing in your faith at rosaryarmy.com and schoolofmary.com. Join a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go on pilgrimage to the mysterious shrines and sites of Italy in the Jubilee year 2025 with Jimmy Yakin and me, Dom Betanelli. Go with us on a 12-day, all-inclusive tour that gives you incredible access to Jimmy's insights in Rome, Assisi, Orvieto, Monte Cassino, San Giovanni Rotondo, the Grotto of St. Michael, and more. We're also planning special activities like recording on location for future episodes of Mysterious World and an in-person, weird questions episode just for pilgrims. Space is limited and filling up, so be sure to find out more. Visit mysterious dot FM slash Italy 2025 to reserve your spot today. That's mysterious dot FM slash Italy 2025. So Jimmy, what clues tell us when the book was written? They're in a section of the book that deals with what's going to happen just before the second come in. And after the world has been brought to completion, the LiR will descend, the great angel, the king of this world, which he has ruled ever since it existed. He will descend from his firmament in the form of a man, a king of iniquity, a murderer of his mother. This is the king of this world. So here is where we start hitting the major clues about when the book was written. The author says that the LiR or the devil will descend from the firmament that is the atmosphere that is below the heavens. He'll descend in the form of a man, and that man will be a king of iniquity who will be a murderer of his mother. That tells us exactly who the author thinks the final villain of world history will be. He thinks it will be the Emperor Nero, who reign between 80, 54, and 68. Nero was known as a Wicked King, and this is the thing that singles him out as an individual he was known for having murdered his mother. His mother, Agrippina the Younger, had been a controlling force early in his reign, and he got tired of dealing with her, and so he had her killed. This was shocking even for a Roman Emperor to do, and so Nero became famous as a matricide or mother murderer of his mother. But Nero died on June 9th of 68. The Roman Senate had declared him an enemy of the state, and were about to arrest him, but he committed suicide first. Nero regarded himself as a great artist, and as he was preparing to commit suicide, he kept pacing up and down and muttering, "What an artist the world is losing." Being unable to some of the courage to kill himself, he then ordered his secretary, a man named Epaphroditus, to kill him. At least that's what's commonly reported. But since the author of the Ascension of Isaiah sees Nero as the final villain of world history, the one whom Jesus will slay at the Second Coming, that means the book must have been written before June of 68. So that sets what's known by scholars as the Terminus Ad Quim, or Limit Up to Witch in Latin, meaning the latest possible date that it could have been written. That gives us a later boundary for the book in time, but now we're going to get another boundary, what scholars call the Terminus Ad Quo, which means the limit from which the book could have been written, or its earliest possible date. The author says that Nero will persecute the plant which the twelve apostles of the beloved will have planted. Some of the twelve will be given into his hand. So the plant that the twelve apostles planted was the church, and Nero did persecute the church after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64. So the book was written after AD 64, but we can narrow the range further, because in this translation it says that some of the twelve will be given into his hand. But there's actually a manuscript issue here. The Ethiopian version says that some will be give of the twelve will be given into his hand, but the Greek says one of the twelve will suffer this fate. That one is undoubtedly Saint Peter, who was the only member of the twelve proper that Nero martyred. He or actually his officials later martyred Saint Paul also, but Nero didn't do that deed himself, and Paul wouldn't remember the twelve, though he was an apostle. The most plausible explanation for this variant is that the book was written after Peter's martyrdom, given us the one in the twelve reading, and then after Paul's martyrdom, the sum of the twelve reading arose, since there was also a memory of Paul being an apostle killed during Nero's reign. In any event, that gives us a new terminus aquo or lower boundary for the book. Peter was martyred in 65 or 66, so the book was written after 65 or 66, but before Nero's suicide in June of 68. We may thus estimate that the book was written in approximately AD 67, plus or minus a year. This is very exciting. We're reading a Christian apocalypse, and it's earlier than some books of the New Testament, like Hebrews, which appears to have been written the next year, sometime in '68, and Revelation, which appears to have been written in the second half of '68. Now, here's what else Satan/Niro will do. "This angel, Blyar, will come in the form of that king, and with him will come all the powers of this world, and they will obey him in every wish, by his word he will cause the sun to rise by night, and the moon also he will make to appear at the sixth hour, and he will do everything he wishes in the world. He will act and speak like the beloved and say, 'I am the Lord, and before me there was no one.' And all men in the world will believe him. They will sacrifice to him and will serve him, saying, 'This is the Lord, and besides him there is no other.' And the majority of those who have associated together to receive the beloved, he will turn aside after him, and the power of his miracles will be in every city and district, and he will set up his image before him in every city, and he will rule for three years and seven months and twenty-seven days, and many faithful and saints when they saw him for whom they were hoping, who was crucified, Jesus the Lord Christ, and I, Isaiah, had seen him who was crucified and ascended, and who believed in him, and these few will be left in those days as his servants, fleeing from desert to desert as they await his coming. So this syncs up with the cult of Roman Emperor worship that was popular in the first century Roman Empire, and that Nero was particularly big on. Also, notice how similar this sounds to a lot of material in the book of Revelation, which also deals with Emperor worship. In both books, the king of the Greco-Roman world, the emperor, demands worship. He sets up images of himself for people to worship, and this worship is a threat even to Christians, particularly when it's accompanied by lion miracles. Also, notice the relationship between the demonic and the human ruler. In the ascension of Isaiah, the devil himself takes on the form of Nero, while in Revelation the beast from the sea is possessed by a frog-like demon. So it's not identical with the devil. The reference to Nero reigning for three years, seven months, and twenty-seven days is interesting. That totals up to thirteen hundred and thirty-five days, which is a number that appears in a prophetic context in Daniel 1212, though its meaning there is not clear. It's also interesting because by AD67, the Nero had already reigned for thirteen years, which is way more than thirteen hundred and thirty-five days. So either the number is symbolic, which is a real possibility, or the thirteen hundred and thirty-five days are meant to start somewhere inside Nero's reign, like maybe after he actively began persecuting Christians in AD65, after the fire of Rome in '64, since the persecution didn't start immediately after the fire. However, despite all the emperor worship being given to him, even by former Christians, there are still a few who sincerely believe in Jesus and are said to be fleeing from desert to desert as the await is coming. This corresponds to the statement of Jesus in the Olivet discourse, saying in the Gospels, saying that once the abomination of desolation appears, all of his followers in Judea should flee, not even stopping to get their cloaks, just get out now. And early Christian authors like Eusebius and Epiphanius of Salamis record that during the Jewish war, beginning in AD66, the Christians in the region did flee to the desert and eventually found shelter in the city of Pella in modern Jordan. By the way, notice that the ascension of Isaiah says that these Christians flee in the desert had seen him for whom they were open, who was crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. So they saw him. These are eyewitnesses of Jesus's ministry, people who had seen Jesus himself, which is another indication that all this has happened in the first century. Now we arrive at the Second Coming itself. And after 1332 days, the Lord will come with his angels. And with the hosts of the saints from the seventh heaven, with the glory of the seventh heaven, and will drag Baliar and his hosts also into Gahanna. So the Second Coming happens in the days of Baliar as Nero, when Jesus would return with his angels and saints from the highest heaven. And notice that the number given here, 1332 days is different than the one we had earlier, or 1335 days. 1335 is significant because it was used in Daniel, but 1332 is also significant in a way that's not obvious to many people today, yet would have been more obvious to people in the ancient world who were more focused on symbolic numbers than we are today. To understand this, you need to know about what are called triangular numbers, what are called square numbers, and what are called rectangular numbers. A triangular number is what you get if you add up the integers, so one, two, three, four, and so on. When you do this, you can arrange the elements, which you can think of as dots, in the form of a triangle. You start with just one dot, so one is a triangular number. Then you put a row of two dots below that, and you get a triangle of three dots. So three is the second triangular number. Then you add another row of three dots below that, giving you a total of six dots. So six is the third triangular number. Then you add another row of four dots below that, and they give you ten total dots. So ten is the fourth triangular number, and so on. You can calculate any triangular number you want, just by adding up the integers, one, two, three, four, successively. People today are more familiar with square numbers, because we learn about them in school. Square numbers are what you get when you arrange dots in a square, and count them. We often think of calculating them in terms of raising a number by the power of two, or square in it. So one squared is one, two squared is four, three squared is nine, and four squared is sixteen. But there's another way to calculate them, which is by adding up all the odd numbers. You start with one, and after one, you add one and three to get four. Then you add one, three, and five to get nine. Then you add one, three, five, and seven, and you get sixteen. By contrast, rectangular numbers, which almost no one knows about today, is what you get when you add up the even numbers. So not one, three, five, seven, but two, four, six, eight. And all of the rectangular numbers can be formed into rectangular arrangements of dots. Since one is an odd number, it's not part of this series. So you start with two, and two dots looks kind of like a little rectangle. Then you add two to four, and you get six. Then you add two and four and six to get twelve. Then you add two and four and six and eight to get twenty. Interestingly, the rectangular numbers are always twice the size of the corresponding triangular numbers. Since for the triangular numbers, you're adding up the integers, one, two, three, four, while for the rectangular numbers, you're adding up the even integers, two, four, six, eight. So it's always double. Now, here's the interesting thing. The biblical number 666, the mark of the beast is a triangular number. In fact, it's the 36th triangular number, and 36 is six times six. So you got sixes all over the place. But 1332 is the 36th rectangular number. It's exactly twice 666. And as we discussed in episode 138 on the mark of the beast, 666 is what you get when you add up the name Nero Caesar in both Hebrew and Aramaic. So it's significant that the ascension of Isaiah links 1332 to Nero as the Antichrist. We thus have both Revelation and the ascension of Isaiah linking the 36th number in a series to the Antichrist with Revelation using the 36th triangular number to refer to one of the seven heads of the beast, though not the final Antichrist. And with the ascension of Isaiah linking the 36th rectangular number to Nero as the Antichrist. In his outstanding book, the climax of prophecy, British scholar Richard Baucom writes, "The number of the beast itself does not appear in the ascension of Isaiah, but the conclusion that it lies behind the text is surely necessary." Evidently, numerological speculation relating Nero's number 666 to the traditional apocalyptic period for the rule of Antichrist lies behind both Revelation and the ascension of Isaiah. In the Christian apocalyptic tradition on which they depend, the respective authors have chosen different, though related, possibilities. John could have chosen the rectangular number directly related to 666. And for such numerological thinking, the relationship is so simple and obvious he could hardly amiss this possibility. The fact that John and the author of the ascension of Isaiah chose different ways of working this out reveals that they were dealing with a common tradition that precedes both of them. But it's fascinating to see this happening. Now, what will happen once Jesus returns and drags Ballyar off to Gehenna or the place of the damned? He will give rest to the pious whom he finds in the body in this world. But the sun in the sky will be ashamed, and to all who, because of their faith in him, have cursed Ballyar and his kings. The saints will come with the Lord, with their robes which are stored up in the seventh heaven above. With the Lord will come those whose spirits are clothed. They will descend and be present in the world, and the Lord will strengthen those who are found in the body, together with the saints in the robes of the saints, and will serve those who have kept watch in this world. And after this, they will be turned in their robes upwards, and their body will be left in the world. So this is quite different than what we read in the Bible, where after the resurrection the righteous will live on the new earth, which is united with the new heaven. Here, in the ascension of Isaiah says that the saints will drop their bodies, and as we'll see, they go up to be with God in the seventh heaven. Then the voice of the beloved will reprove and anger this heaven and this earth, and the mountains and the hills, and the cities and the desert and the trees, and the angel of the sun and that of the moon, and everywhere that Ballyar had appeared and acted openly in this world. There will be a resurrection and a judgment in their midst in those days, and the beloved will cause fire to rise from him, and it will consume all the impious, and they will become as if they had not been created. This is also different than what we read in Revelation, where the wicked are thrown into the lake of fire but survive, and here they're consumed by the fire and cease to exist. So the author of the Ascension of Isaiah supported a theory known as Annihilationism, which holds that the wicked will be annihilated rather than continue to exist. The author then closes the vision by listing other resources where one can find prophetic information. For example, he refers to the vision of Babylon, which is basically chapter 13 of the canonical book of Isaiah. He also refers to a bunch of other prophetic works, not all of which are known with confidence, but we won't go through those one by one. Instead, let's turn back to the final chapter in this part of the book. What happens in it? We're now up to chapter five of the Ascension of Isaiah, and Isaiah has just been explaining the vision that made the devil mad and prompted Bill Kira to accuse him before King Manasseh and get him arrested. So now we turn back to what's happening with that situation. Because of these visions, therefore, Baliar was angry with Isaiah, and he dwelt in the heart of Manasseh, and he sawed Isaiah in half with the wood saw. So boom, Manasseh has Isaiah sawed into. Now, when I first read this, I assumed that a wood saw was just the kind of saw you use for saw in wood. However, there is a case to be made that it means a wooden saw that is a saw made out of wood. And interestingly, one of the early church fathers refers to this tradition. In chapter 120 of the dialogue with Trifo, St. Justin Martyr mentions that Isaiah was saw into with a wood or wooden saw, which may be evidence that he knew the Ascension of Isaiah, or at least, that he was drawn on the same traditions as the author of the book. However, now the author sort of walks us backward in time through the execution itself. And while Isaiah was being sawed in half, his accuser, Bill Kira, stood by, and all the false prophets stood by, laughing and maliciously joyful because of Isaiah. And Bill Kira, through Mckembecus, stood before Isaiah, laughing and deriding. And Bill Kira said to Isaiah, "Say, I have lied in everything I have spoken. The ways of Manasseh are good and right, and also the ways of Bill Kira and those who are with him are good." And he said this to him when he began to be sawed in half. In Isaiah was in a vision of the Lord, but his eyes were open and he saw them. And Bill Kira spoke thus to Isaiah, "Say what I say to you, and I will turn their heart and make Manasseh and the princes of Judah and the people and all Jerusalem worship you." So, as he was beginning to be sawed into, Belkira made an offer to spare Isaiah's life, if he'd renounced all that he'd previously said, and endorsed what Manasseh and Bill Kira were doing. He says that Belkira was under the influence of Mckembecus or Satan, and Belkira even says that he will get others to worship Isaiah. But Isaiah was having a vision of the Lord, though his eyes were open, and he could still see Belkira and the others who were mocking him. So, what did he say in response? "In Isaiah answered and said, 'If it is within my power to say condemned and cursed be you and all your hosts and all your house, for there is nothing further that you can take except the skin of my body.'" So, Isaiah tells Belkira, "No soup for you." He calls down a curse on him and all his associates and says all they can do to him is take the skin from his body. Now, the author backs up in time again and relates something that happened before the execution. "And to the prophets who were with him he said before he was sawed in half, 'Go to the district of Tyre and Satan, because for me alone the Lord has mixed the cup.'" So, Isaiah told the other prophets who were living with him on the mountain to get out of Dodge and go to Tyre and Satan, which are up north in Lebanon, and thus out of the reach of King Manasseh. He says that they are to do this because the cup of martyrdom has been mixed for him alone, which is a metaphor used in the Gospels, where Jesus refers to his own crucifixion as a cup that God has prepared for him. "And while Isaiah was being sawed in half he did not cry out or weep, but his mouth spoke with the Holy Spirit until he was sawed in two." Elayar did this to Isaiah through Belkira and through Manasseh. For Samuel was very angry with Isaiah from the days of Hezekiah, King of Judah, because of the things which he had seen concerning the Beloved, and because of the destruction of Samuel which he had seen through the Lord, while Hezekiah his father was king, and he did as Satan wished. So, using several names for the devil, the author reminds us that all of this is payback for the prophetic visions that were received during the time of Good King Hezekiah, including the ultimate destruction of Satan himself, so the thought of his doom made the devil very angry. Thus ends the first part of the Ascension of Isaiah, and it is on a rather downbeat note with the prophet being martyred. But next week, we'll look at part two of the book, which has a much more joyous tone as we hear about Isaiah's glorious ascension through the Seven Heavens, and we learn more traditions about Jesus, including ones not mentioned in the Gospels. And while the viewers and listeners wait for that, what further resources can they have? We'll have a link to James Charlesworth's book, Old Testament, Pseudepigrapha, Volume Two, which contains the Ascension of Isaiah, also Jonathan Knight's book, The Ascension of Isaiah, Jan Bremmer, and others book, The Ascension of Isaiah, Richard Baucom's book, The Climax of Prophecy, and an online translation of The Ascension of Isaiah. Very good. And now it's time to hear from you. What are your theories about the Ascension and martyrdom of Isaiah? Let us know by visiting sqpn.com or the Jimmy Eakins mysterious world Facebook page, sending us an email to feedback@mysterious.fm, sending a tweet to @mys_world, visiting the StarQuest Discord community at sqpn.com/discord, or calling our mysterious feedback line at 619-738-4515. That's 619-738-4515. I also want to thank Rob Mady for his voice over work on this episode. And I want to say a special word of thanks to Oasis Studio 7 for the video and animation work on this episode. Be sure to visit my YouTube channel, youtube.com/jimmyaken, and check out the video version of the podcast. While you're there, you can help me out by liking, commenting, and sharing the video, all of which till YouTube you found it engaging, and so other people will find it engaging too. And I am trying to grow my channel, so I'd really appreciate it if you subscribe, and be sure to hit the bell notification so you're always notified when I have a new video. So Jimmy, what's our next episode going to be about? Next week we're going to be looking at the second half of the Ascension of Isaiah. So we're going to be hearing about Isaiah's ascent through the seven heavens and learn more about what he saw concerning Jesus, including Jesus' traditions that are not recorded in the gospels. So you won't want to miss that. Folks, we're sure to check out the mysterious world bookstore at mysteriousworldstore.com for links to all those books and videos that Jimmy mentions in the show. Get your very own mysterious world t-shirt mug and more in our merchandise shop at sqpn.com/merch. You'll find links to Jimmy's resources from our discussion on our show notes at mysterious.fm/332. And remember, to help us continue to produce the podcast, please visit sqpn.com/give. 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