The Political Issue of the Ascension of Isaiah: A Response to Enrico Norelli
Enrico Norelli argued in 2003 that the references to martyrdom in the Ascension of Isaiah are symbolic rather than actual. This article challenges his reliance on the Mishnah in support of the assertion that Isaiah dies as a martyr in the contest between true and false prophecy in the second-century church. It argues that the progress of thought in chs. 1–5 suggests that martyrdom is more obviously an actual and recent feature of the authors’ experience than a merely symbolic entity. The martyrdom of Ignatius is further considered in this context. This result is the insistence that the Ascension of Isaiah has a strong ‘political’ dimension in both of its halves. Such evidence must be inserted into the evaluation of the emerging Christian movement, not least in its response to both Jews and the Romans as factors external to, yet bearing on, the church, at the time of writing.
Only the Third Heaven?: 2 Corinthians 12.1-10 and Heavenly Ascent
CHAPTER 1 General Introduction PART 1: Texts of Heavenly Ascent CHAPTER 2 Introduction: Heavenly Ascent Texts: A History of Scholarship CHAPTER 3 Jewish Apocalyptic Texts Pre-70 AD CHAPTER 4 Jewish Apocalyptic Texts Post-70 AD. CHAPTER 5 The New Testament CHAPTER 6 Post-Biblical Early Christian Apocalypses CHAPTER 7 The Nag Hammadi Codices CHAPTER 8 The Hekhalot Literature CHAPTER 9 Conclusions to Part One PART 2: 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 and Heavenly Ascent CHAPTER 10 2 Corinthians 12: 1-10 as a Heavenly Ascent CHAPTER 11 2 Corinthians 12.1-10 as a Subversion of the Heavenly Ascent CHAPTER 12 General Conclusions.
Women and Politics in Early Tudor England
Political historians working on the early Tudor period have traditionally concentrated on institutions – monarchy, council, parliament, courts, and administrative bodies – that excluded women. The very definition of politics underlying the dominant historiography has thus made it seem both natural and inevitable to write history as if the world of high politics, the world that really counted, were exclusively male.