Category:Psalms of Solomon (text)

• This page is edited by Kenneth Atkinson, University of Northern Iowa, United States of America

The Psalms of Solomon is a Jewish writing, generally included in collections of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

Overview

The Psalms of Solomon is a collection of eighteen pseudonymous Jewish poems that recount an unknown community’s response to a series of military attacks and political persecutions. The Psalms of Solomon was likely written by several authors, and collected together in its present form at some unknown date. The collection contains numerous historical allusions (esp. Pss. Sol. 2, 8, 17) to the Roman general Pompey’s 63 B.C.E. conquest of Jerusalem. The Psalms of Solomon is a highly polemical composition that denounces Judea’s Hasmonean rulers. Several poems appear to condemn the struggle over the high priesthood between the two sons of queen Salome Alexandra (76-67 B.C.E.), John Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. Since the latest identifiable historical reference is to Pompey’s assassination in Egypt in 48 B.C.E. (Pss. Sol. 2:26-7), they were likely completed sometime after that date, but before the Romans appointed Herod the Great as Judea’s king in 40 B.C.E. It is possible that the poems were updated to reflect the Herodian period.

Manuscript tradition

The Psalms of Solomon was composed in Hebrew, but survive only in Greek and Syriac translations. There are eleven known Greek and five Syriac manuscripts that date from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries C.E. In some Greek manuscripts the work is titled Psalms of Solomon whereas others label it as Psalms of Salomon. Three Greek manuscripts label them as the Wisdom of Solomon. In two Syriac manuscripts the collection follows the 42 Odes of Solomon and the first Psalm of Solomon is numbered as the 43rd Ode. This may indicate that Syriac speaking Christians used the composition in their worship. Scholars continue to debate the relationship between the Greek and Syriac versions. At the present time, the bulk of scholarship holds that Syriac’s close relationship with the Greek text makes it more probable that the Syriac is a translation of the Greek and not the Hebrew. The titles to the individual psalms were likely added at an unknown date to imitate the headings affixed to the biblical psalter. The Psalms of Solomon was unknown to scholars until its discovery (sometime before 1604) and publication (1626) in the seventeenth century.

Although the Psalms of Solomon’s manuscripts are rather late, a reference to the collection in the fifth century C.E. Codex Alexandrinus provides evidence of its early use by Christians. The collection was once quite popular and is listed in numerous catalogs such as pseudo-Athanasius’ Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae (early sixth century C.E.), the ninth-century C.E. Sticometria of Nicephorus, the Armenian Canon list transmitted by Mechitar of Ayrivank’ (1285 C.E.), and six Slavic lists (eleventh-sixteenth centuries C.E.) that are likely copied from more ancient catalogues.

Synopsis

(1) Introduces the theme of warfare that dominates much of the collection. The poem was likely added to the corpus to provide it with an introduction. It is the only poem that lacks a title. (2) “A Psalm. Pertaining to Solomon. Concerning Jerusalem.” Describes the siege of Jerusalem by a foreign general called “the dragon” (Pss. Sol. 2:25). The psalmist views his later assassination in Egypt (Pss. Sol. 2:26-7) as God’s punishment for defiling Jerusalem. (3) “A Psalm. Pertaining to Solomon. Concerning the Righteous.” This short poem describes the fates of the righteous and the sinner. It appears to espouse a belief in the afterlife. (4) “Discourse of Solomon. Pertaining to the men-pleasers.” Describes the crimes of a hypocrite who presides over the “council of the pious” (Pss. Sol. 4:1), which is likely the Jewish court known as the Sanhedrin. The poet implores God to punish this man and his associates. (5) “A Psalm. Pertaining to Solomon.” This poem describes poverty as a sign of God’s favor. It teaches that excessive wealth leads to sin. The author encourages the devout to praise God as king. (6) “In Hope. Pertaining to Solomon.” This psalm encourages the righteous to pray to God. It acknowledges that God fulfills the prayers of the righteous. (7) “Pertaining to Solomon. Of returning.” This poem pleads with God to protect Jerusalem and the temple from an impending invasion. (8) “Pertaining to Solomon. Regarding Victory.” Blames the recent invasion of Jerusalem on the sins of its inhabitants. (9) “Pertaining to Solomon. Regarding Rebuke.” This poem encourages the devout to seek repentance for their sins. (10) “Among Hymns. Pertaining to Solomon.” This poem discusses God’s punishment of the devout. The author believes that even the righteous have sinned, but acknowledges that the Torah guarantees that God will limit divine discipline. (11) “Pertaining to Solomon. Regarding Expectation.” The author describes how God will eventually return all the Jews from the Diaspora to Jerusalem. (12) “Pertaining to Solomon. Against the Tongue of the Transgressors of the Law.” The poet pleads to God to save him and his community from suffering inflicted by some “wicked” man. (13) “A Psalm. Pertaining to Solomon. Comfort for the Righteous.” The psalms describes how God spared the poet during a recent attack on Jerusalem. (14) “A Hymn. Pertaining to Solomon.” The psalmist urges the devout to accept suffering as a sign of God’s protection. (15) “A Psalm. Pertaining to Solomon. With an Ode.” The poet describes how God protected him and his community from persecution by placing a mark of divine protection upon them. (16) “A Hymn. Pertaining to Solomon. Regarding help for the devout.” This poem thanks God for delivering the psalmist from some crisis. (17) “A Psalm. Pertaining to Solomon. With an Ode. Pertaining to the king.” This poem describes the destruction of Jerusalem by a foreign army and the author’s expectation of the Davidic Messiah. (18) “A Psalm. Pertaining to Salomon. Again of the Anointed of the Lord.” This poem describes the coming Davidic messiah.

The Psalms of Solomon in Scholarship (History of research)

The Psalms of Solomon was not known until its publication in 1626 by Juan Luis de la Cerda. Since de la Cerda's publication, scholars have sought to identify the numerous veiled allusions to historical personages scattered throughout the collection. In 1847, F.K. Movers first suggested that the background of most of these psalms was Pompey's invasion of Jerusalem in 63 B.C.E. Julius Wellhausen, in his work Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer expanded upon Mover's thesis, and proposed that the Psalms of Solomon represented Jewish Pharisaism at the time of Pompey's arrival. This theory was further expanded upon by a succession of writers in various critical editions of the psalms. In 1891, Ryle and James were so certain of the Pompeian dating and Pharisaic attribution of the Psalms of Solomon, that they titled their commentary on the collection, The Psalms of the Pharisees. This work, still the only English commentary on the Psalms of Solomon, continues to dominant contemporary scholarship.

In the 2000s, Kenneth Atkinson proposed that our present corpus of Psalms of Solomon was the product of a later redactor, who collected a number of psalms containing the theological reflections of a Jewish community to the changing political situation within Jerusalem. The earliest of these psalms date just prior to Pompey's arrival in 63 BCE, and the latest document Herod the Great's siege of Jerusalem in 37 BCE. Once the tenuous nature of the Pharisaical connection is recognized, then these psalms can properly function as a witness to the great diversity that existed in Palestinian Judaism, within Jerusalem, during the latter portion of the first century BCE.

The Psalms of Solomon in Fiction

Related categories

• Solomon / Messiah

External links

Online translations

• Internet Sacred Texts Archive, and Wesley Center Online, by G. Buchanan Gray (1913) <English>

Introductions

• Wikipedia
• Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)

References (major articles)