A New Song

Princeton Seminary Receives Copies of Hymnbook from Jesus’ Time

In May Princeton Seminary became, according to PTS New Testament professor James H. Charlesworth, “a major documentary repository for the study of the Psalms of Solomon—a hymnbook from the time of Jesus and Hillel."

Robert B. Wright, professor in the religion department at Temple University, traveled the globe (including to London, Paris, Moscow, Vatican City, Athens, and Mt. Athos) taking and collecting photos from libraries and monasteries to compile the first full critical edition of this hymnbook, which will be published by Sheffield Academic Press. His work will enrich the research of students and faculty at Princeton who are focusing on the time of Hillel and Jesus—thanks to the following gift, which will be housed in the archives of Luce Library:

• 14 CDs with high-resolution images of the eleven Greek and five Syriac manuscripts of the Psalms of Solomon (manuscripts that were copied between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries).

• CDs containing approximately 350 color photographs of the manuscripts. Most of these manuscripts are now photographed in color for the first time. Wright’s archive is probably the only collection of ancient manuscripts that is available in high-resolution color images (some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are also now available with this quality; the PTS Dead Sea Scrolls Project has these).

• Twelve albums of 8 x 10 prints of the Greek and the Syriac manuscripts.

• About 150 supporting photographs, including, for example, the full text of de la Cerda’s 1626 edition of this pseudepigraphon (the first published edition, in Greek, with a Latin translation).


Robert B. Wright (middle) presents Psalms of Solomon material to PTS professor James H. Charlesworth (left) and PTS archivist Bill Harris.
Charlesworth explains the importance of the Psalms of Solomon, and thus access to these manuscripts, as follows:

In our Old Testament three documents are attributed to Solomon: The Song of Solomon, Proverbs of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. In the Old Testament Apocrypha another work was known as the work of David’s son: The Wisdom of Solomon. In the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha three additional compositions were attributed to the wisest man in biblical history: the Testament of Solomon, the Odes of Solomon, and the Psalms of Solomon. Most experts claim that these poetic or wisdom books were attributed to Solomon—as an honor and because of the claim in 1 Kings 4:32 that Solomon composed 3000 proverbs and 1005 songs. In A.D. 240, Origen of Alexandria, however, claimed that ‘the Churches of God’ know nothing about these thousands of Solomonic songs (Cant.Cant Prologus 36). However, ancient collections of the Odes and Psalms attributed to Solomon have since been discovered.

Most scholars conclude that the Psalms of Solomon is a hymnbook composed in Hebrew, in Jerusalem, sometime shortly before the reign of Herod the Great (40-4 B.C.). This hymnbook is close to the type of Pharisaism Paul knew; in fact, he may have known this hymnbook and some of the traditions preserved in it.

The Psalms of Solomon is a singularly important document. Three aspects of this hymnbook are particularly impressive. First, it contains an eyewitness account of the Roman incursion into Jerusalem and the demise of the Roman general Pompey who brought Roman rule into Palestine:

And I did not wait long until God showed me his insolence
pierced on the mountains of Egypt,
more despised than the smallest thing on earth and sea.
His body was carried about on the waves in much shame,
and there was no one to bury (him),
for he (God) had despised him with contempt.
—Wright in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2.653

Second, the work contains a reference to the Jewish belief in resurrection just before the time of Jesus of Nazareth:

This is the shame of sinners forever,
but those who fear the Lord shall rise up to eternal life,
and their life shall be in the Lord’s light, and it shall never end.
—Wright in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2.655

Third, the composition contains perhaps the locus classicus for belief in a Davidic messiah, and it antedates by a few decades the Palestinian Jesus Movement:

See, Lord, and raise up for them their king,
the son of David, to rule over your servant Israel
in the time known to you, O God….

And he will be a righteous king over them, taught by God.
There will be no unrighteousness among them in his days,
for all shall be holy,
and their king shall be the Lord Messiah.

—Wright in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2.667

Princeton faculty and students are thankful for this resource that, via CD-ROM, takes them a step closer to the ideas and beliefs of Jews during Jesus’ time.