The work of combining and editing these three independent writings may go back to early in the 3rd or even to the 2nd century.
Literature.—Editions of the Ethiopic Text: Laurence, Ascensio Isaiae vatis (1819); Dillmann, Ascensio Isaiae Aethiopice et Latine, cum prolegomenis, adnotationibus criticis et exegeticis, additis versionum Latinarum reliquiis edita (1877); Charles, Ascension of Isaiah, translated from the Ethiopic Version, which, together with the new Greek Fragment, the Latin Versions and the Latin translation of the Slavonic, is here published in full, edited with Introduction, Notes and Indices (1900); Flemming, in Hennecke’s NTliche Apok. 292-305; NTliche Apok.-Handbuch, 323-331. This translation is made from Charles’s text, and his analysis of the text is in the main accepted by this scholar. Translations: In addition to the translations given in the preceding editions, Basset, Les Apocryphes éthiopiens, iii. “L’Ascension d’Isaïe” (1894); Beer, Apok. und Pseud. (1900) ii. 124-127. The latter is a German rendering of ii.-iii. 1-12, v. 2-14, of Dillmann’s text. Critical Inquiries: Stokes, art. “Isaiah, Ascension of,” in Smith’s Dict. of Christian Biography (1882), iii. 298-301; Robinson, “The Ascension of Isaiah” in Hastings’ Bible Dict. ii. 499-501. For complete bibliography see Schürer,3 Gesch. des jüd. Volks, iii. 280-285; Charles, op. cit.
(R. H. C.)
[1] Published by them in the Amherst Papyri, an account of the Greek papyri in the collection of Lord Amherst (1900), and by Charles in his edition.
ISANDHLWANA, an isolated hill in Zululand, 8 m. S.E. of Rorke’s Drift across the Tugela river, and 105 m. N. by W. of Durban. On the 22nd of January 1879 a British force encamped at the foot of the hill was attacked by about 10,000 Zulus, the flower of Cetewayo’s army, and destroyed. Of eight hundred Europeans engaged about forty escaped (see [Zululand]: History).
ISAR (identical with Isère, in Celtic “the rapid”), a river of Bavaria. It rises in the Tirolese Alps N.E. from Innsbruck, at an altitude of 5840 ft. It first winds in deep, narrow glens and gorges through the Alps, and at Tölz (2100 ft.), due north from its source, enters the Bavarian plain, which it traverses in a generally north and north-east direction, and pours its waters into the Danube immediately below Deggendorf after a course of 219 m. The area of its drainage basin is 38,200 sq. m. Below Munich the stream is 140 to 350 yards wide, and is studded with islands. It is not navigable, except for rafts. The total fall of the river is 4816 ft. The Isar is essentially the national stream of the Bavarians. It has belonged from the earliest times to the Bavarian people and traverses the finest corn land in the kingdom. On its banks lie the cities of Munich and Landshut, and the venerable episcopal see of Freising, and the inhabitants of the district it waters are reckoned the core of the Bavarian race.
See C. Gruber, Die Isar nach ihrer Entwickelung und ihren hydrologischen Verhältnissen (Munich, 1889); and Die Bedeutung der Isar als Verkehrsstrasse (Munich, 1890).