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Ascension of Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 4

1 And now Hezekiah and Josab my son, these are the days of the completion of the world.⁠ 2 After it is accomplished, Beliar the great ruler, the king of this world, will descend, who has ruled it since it came into being; yes, he will descend from his firmament in the likeness of a man, a lawless king, the slayer of his mother: who himself even this king. 3 Will persecute the plant which the Twelve Apostles of the Beloved have planted. Of the Twelve one will be delivered into his hands. 4 This ruler in the form of that king will come and there will come with him all the powers of this world, and they will listen to him in all that he desires. 5 And at his word the sun will rise at night and he will make the moon appear at the sixth hour. 6 And all that he has desired he will do in the world: he will do and speak like the Beloved and he will say: I am God and before me there has been none.⁠ 7 And all the people in the world will believe in him. 8. And they will sacrifice to him and they will serve him saying: This is God and beside him there is no other. 8 And the greater number of those who will have been associated together in order to receive the Beloved, he will turn aside after him. 9 And there will be the power of his miracles in every city and region. 10 And he will set up his image before him in every city. 11 And he will reign three years and seven months and twenty-seven days. 12 And many believers and saints having seen Him for whom they were hoping, who was crucified, Jesus the Lord Christ, after that I, Isaiah, had seen Him who was crucified and ascended and those also who were believers in Him – of these few in those days will be left as His servants, while they flee from desert to desert, awaiting the coming of the Beloved. 13 And after one thousand three hundred and thirty-two days the Lord will come with His angels and with the armies of the holy ones from the seventh heaven with the glory of the seventh heaven, and He will drag Beliar into Gehenna and also his armies. 14 And He will give rest to the godly whom He will find in the body in this world, and the sun will be ashamed: 15 And to all who because of their faith in Him have cursed Beliar and his kings. But the saints will come with the Lord with their garments which are now stored up on high in the seventh heaven: with the Lord they will come, whose spirits are clothed, they will descend and be present in the world, and He will strengthen those, who have been found in the body, together with the saints, in the garments of the saints, and the Lord will serve those who have kept watch in this world. 16 And afterwards they will turn themselves upward in their garments, and their body will be left in the world. 17 Then the voice of the Beloved will in wrath rebuke the things of heaven and the things of earth and the mountains and the hills and the cities and the desert and the forests and the angel of the sun and that of the moon, and all things in which Beliar manifested himself and acted openly in this world, and there will be a resurrection and a judgment in their midst in those days, and the Beloved will cause fire to go forth from Him, and it will consume all the godless, and they will be as though they had not been created. 18 And the rest of the words of the vision is written in the vision of Babylon. 19 And the rest of the vision regarding the Lord, see, it is written in three parables according to my words which are written in the book which I publicly prophesied. 20 And the descent of the Beloved into Sheol, see, it is written in the section, where the Lord says: See my Son will understand. And all these things, see they are written in the Psalms in the parables of David, the son of Jesse, and in the Proverbs of Solomon his son, and in the words of Korah, and Ethan the Israelite, and in the words of Asaph, and in the rest of the Psalms also which the angel of the Spirit inspired. 21 Namely in those which have not the name written, and in the words of my father Amos, and of Hosea the prophet, and of Micah and Joel and Nahum and Jonah and Obadiah and Habakkuk and Haggai and Malachi, and in the words of Joseph the Just and in the words of Daniel.

Texts in conversation

Compare Ascension of Isaiah 4:2 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · New Testament

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Summary

2 Thessalonians and the Ascension of Isaiah describe a rebellious “man of lawlessness.” In 2 Thessalonians, this person will exalt himself and be destroyed at the end of the age, and in the Ascension, it is Beliar, identified with the corrupt Nero.

Passages

Ascension of Isaiah 4:2

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
1 And now Hezekiah and Josab my son, these are the days of the completion of the world. 2 After it is accomplished, Beliar the great ruler, the king of this world, will descend, who has ruled it since it came into being; yes, he will descend from his firmament in the likeness of a man, a lawless king, the slayer of his mother: who himself even this king. 3 Will persecute the plant which the Twelve Apostles of the Beloved have planted. Of the Twelve one will be delivered into his hands. 4 This ruler in the form of that king will come and there will come with him all the powers of this world, and they will listen to him in all that he desires. 5 And at his word the sun will rise at night and he will make the moon appear at the sixth hour. 6 And all that he has desired he will do in the world: he will do and speak like the Beloved and he will say: I am God and before me there has been none. 7 And all the people in the world will believe in him. 8. And they will sacrifice to him and they will serve him saying: This is God and beside him there is no other.
70–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Ascension of Isaiah

2 Thessalonians 2:3

New Testament
1 Now regarding the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to be with him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to be easily shaken from your composure or disturbed by any kind of spirit or message or letter allegedly from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not arrive until the rebellion comes and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. 4 He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and as a result he takes his seat in God’s temple, displaying himself as God. 5 Surely you recall that I used to tell you these things while I was still with you. 6 And so you know what holds him back, so that he will be revealed in his own time. 7 For the hidden power of lawlessness is already at work. However, the one who holds him back will do so until he is taken out of the way, 8 and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will destroy by the breath of his mouth and wipe out by the manifestation of his arrival.
80–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Thessalonians

References

"... John foresees the end-product of the beast’s regime to be a social and economic boycott of all who refuse to worship him, cutting them off from access to the necessities of life. But, as in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, the man of lawlessness is destroyed by the Advent of Christ, so in Revelation 19:20 the beast and the false prophet are consigned to perdition by the victorious Word of God at his appearing ... The Ascension of Isaiah, an early Christian document, incorporates a Testament of Hezekiah, in which the ultimate Antichrist appears as an incarnation of Beliar (the Greek spelling of Belial, as in 2 Corinthians 6:15), the spirit of evil in the world. This expected incarnation of Beliar, moreover, is identified with the returning Nero, described by King Hezekiah as “a lawless king, the slayer of his mother” - a reference to Nero’s widely suspected responsibility for the killing of the younger Agrippina ..."
F. F. Bruce, Word Biblical Commentary: 1 and 2 Thessalonians (Waco, TX: Word, 1982), 322–323.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Ascension of Isaiah 4:2 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3

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