The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

CHAPTER TWENTY
THE BIBLE, THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON, AND QUMRAN
Joseph L. Trafton
Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there were few Jewish writings
that could be dated with some degree of certainty to the first century
B.C.E. and, hence, could be used as witnesses to Judaism in the era just
prior to the rise of Christianity. One such book was a collection of eighteen
noncanonical psalms called the Psalms of Solomon 1 (hereafter Pss. Sol.).
Apparently the product of a specific group within Judaism, the Pss. Sol.
came to be regarded by scholars as the classical source for pre-Christian
Pharisaism. In addition, for a long time the Pss. Sol. stood out as containing
the clearest example of Jewish Messianism prior to the turn of the
eras. The excitement that continues unabated since the discovery of the
Scrolls has to a large extent pushed documents such as the Pss. Sol. into
the background. Though this turn of events might give cause for regret,
the new window that the Scrolls have opened upon Judaism of this
period has at the same time given us a fresh perspective from which to
examine the Pss. Sol. and its contributions to an understanding both of
Judaism in the first century B.C.E. and of the NT.
Although the Pss. Sol. are preserved only in Greek and Syriac, most
scholars agree that they were probably composed in Hebrew. I have
argued elsewhere that both the Greek and the Syriac are independent witnesses
to the original. 2 In addition, there is a general consensus that certain
historical allusions in Pss. Sol. 2, 8, and 17 refer to the Roman general
Pompey, who captured Jerusalem in 63 B.C.E. and was slain in Egypt in
1. For an introduction to the Psalms of Solomon, see Joseph L. Trafton, “Solomon,
Psalms of,” ABD 6:115–17. For the current state of research, see Robert B. Wright,
“Psalms of Solomon,” OTP 2:639–50; Joseph L. Trafton, “Research on the Psalms of
Solomon Since 1977,” JSP 12 (1994): 3–19; Mikael Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous:
A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters (ConBNT 26; Stockholm:
Almqvist and Wiksell, 1995), 9–21; and Kenneth Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the
Psalms of Solomon (Studies in the Bible and Christianity 49; Lewiston, NY: Edwin
Mellen, 2000), 396–429.
2. Joseph L. Trafton, The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Evaluation
(SBLSCS 11; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), and “The Psalms of Solomon: New Light
from the Syriac Version?” JBL 105 (1986): 227–37.
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