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Christos Kyrios in PsSol 17.32: ‘The Lord's Anointed’ Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Robert R. Hann
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Extract

According to the most generally accepted text, the angels of Lk 2. 11 announced the birth of Jesus to the Judean shepherds and designated him σωτηρ ος εοτω χριστος κυριος, commonly translated ‘a saviour, who is Christ the Lord’. Familiarity with these words as part of the Christmas story obscures the fact that the title χριστος κυριος is unique in the NT to Lk 2. 11. This title is not without precedent, however, and appears as a messianic title in the readings of the MSS of PsSol 17. 32. This paper will examine the use of χριστος κυριος in PsSol 17. 32, and will propose that it is one of several new messianic titles combining ‘messiah’ with a political honorific used as an appositional modifier.

Type
Short Studies
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , October 1985 , pp. 620 - 627
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

Notes

[1] Its components, κυριος and χριστος, are of course common in the NT alone and in such combinations as κυριος Ιησους, ‘Lord Jesus’, Ιησους χριστος, ‘Jesus Christ’, and κυριος Ιησους χριστος, ‘Lord Jesus Christ’. The simple apposition χριστος κυριος, however, is found nowhere else in the NT. Several have suggested that the reading should be emended to χριστος κυριος, ‘the Lord's messiah’. See Grundmann, W., ‘χριστος’, TDNT 9 (1974) 533nGoogle Scholar; Jones, D., ‘The Title Christos in Luke-Acts’, CBQ 37 (1970) 75–6Google Scholar. The editors of UBSGNT, however, give χριστος κυριος an ‘A’ rating, which means, in their opinion, that ‘the text is virtually certain’, (p. x)

[2] PsSol 17. 36 in some editions, including the English translation by Gray, G. B. (APOT [1913] 2, 625–52)Google Scholar. Since the most readily available Greek text of the Psalms of Solomon is that contained in Rahlfs', A.Septuaginta ([Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935] 2, 471–89), his numeration will be adopted in this paper.Google Scholar

[3] Hann, R., ‘A Prolegomenon to the Textual Criticism of the Psalms of Solomon’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University, 1977), 97–8.Google Scholar

[4] Wright, R., ‘The Psalms of Solomon: a Provisional Collated Greek Text’ (Temple University, 1976)Google Scholar. Whether abbreviated or spelled out in full, the nominative case of κυριος is clear in all the MSS.

[5] Weilhausen, J., Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer (Griefswald, n.p., 1874) 132Google Scholar; Schüpphaus, J., Die Psalmen Salomos (Leiden: Brill, 1977) 71.Google Scholar

[6] Wellhausen, , Pharisäer 132Google Scholar; Gray, , APOT 2, 650Google Scholar; Kuhn, K. G., Die Älteste Textgestalt der Psalmen Salomos (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1937) 73Google Scholar. Gebhardt, O. von, whose Die Psalmen Salomo 's (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1895) is the most complete edition of the Psalms of Solomon, cites Wellhausen without further comment p. 133).Google Scholar

[7] Viteau, J., Les Psaumes de Salomon (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911) 361–2Google Scholar; Rahlfs, , Septuaginta 2, 488Google Scholar; Schüpphaus, , Psalmen 71.Google Scholar

[8] Wellhausen, , Pharisäer, 132.Google Scholar

[9] Swete, H. B., The Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891) 3, 765–87.Google Scholar

[10] Rahlfs, , Septuaginta 2, 488.Google Scholar

[11] Rahlfs, A., Psalmi cum Odis (Septuaginta X: Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1931) 30–2.Google Scholar

[12] Rahlfs, , Septuaginta 2, 764.Google Scholar

[13] Rahlfs, A., Genesis (Septuaginta I: Stuttgart: Priviligierte Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1926) 20–3.Google Scholar

[14] For an instance in which an upsilon and a sigma, both written in suspension, closely resemble each other and might be confused, see the reproduction of περι του παρατεθεντος in Allen, T. W., Notes on Abbreviations in Greek Manuscripts ([Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1967] 21Google Scholar and the corresponding plate). Rahlfs was aware of the poor work of the copyist, and commented that the scribe may not have known that was only to be used for the genitive (Genesis 21).

[15] Rost, L., Judaism Outside the Hebrew Canon (Nashville: Abingdon, 1976) 119.Google Scholar

[16] Metzger, B. M., The Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford, 1968) 182–3.Google Scholar

[17] Usually , except in 2 Sam 23. 1, where David is called, ‘the anointed of the God of Jacob.

[18] See de Vaux, R., Ancient Israel (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965) 1, 100.Google Scholar

[19] Ibid., 2, 400.

[20] may be used in combination with a preceding title, as in Jer 20. 1, ( ‘prince [= chief] overseer’). immediately follows the verb , ‘to anoint’, in 1 Sam 9.16.

[21] Macho, A. Diez, ed., Neophyti 1: Genesis (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cien-tificas, 1968) 331, 635. English translation by M. McNamara and M. M. Maher.Google Scholar

[22] Sokoloff, M., ed., Midrash Bereshit Rabba (Jerusalem: Makor, n.d.) 187Google Scholar. An English translation appears in Freedman, H., Midrash Rabbah: Genesis (London: Soncino, 1951) 955–6.Google Scholar

[23] Schwab, Moïse, trans., Le Talmud de Jerusalem (Paris: Editions Maisonneuve, G.-P., 1960) 189Google Scholar; van der Woude, A., ‘Χριστος’, TDNT 9 (1974) 523.Google Scholar

[24] See the discussions in Bowker, J., The Targum and Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969) 26–7, 64–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McNamara, M., ‘Targums’, IDB 5:859.Google Scholar

[25] Fürster, W., ‘κυριος’, TDNT 3 (1965) 1050.Google Scholar

[26] Ibid., 1049–50.

[27] Ibid., p. 1054. The use of as a messianic title may also be reflected in Mk 12. 36 (and its parallels) in which Ps 110. 1 is quoted as a messianic reference: ‘The Lord said to my lord’ (Ειπεν κυριος τω κυριω μου MT ). If the Markan passage is authentic (a matter of some controversy), then , ‘lord’, may have already been current in Judea as a title for the messiah. On the use of Ps 110. 1 as a messianic reference, see the discussions by Weiser, A. (The Psalms [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962] 692)Google Scholar and Cullmann, O. (The Christology of the New Testament [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963] 84, 88, 130–3, 203).Google Scholar

[28] It is not necessary to conclude from the absence of any article in the reading of the MSS of PsSol 17. 32 that a construct state Vorlage is indicated. To be sure, the text is χριστος κυριος, and not χριστος ο κυριος (= ). The hellenistic practice was to combine political titles and honorifics anarthrously. (See the examples in Förster, W., ‘κυριος’, TDNT 3:1049–50.Google Scholar) As the examples in the preceding paragraph show, κυριος may either follow (as in PsSol 17. 32) or precede the terms to which it is appended.

[29] The Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called the Psalms of Solomon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891) 142Google Scholar. It seems to be a common assumption that, in terms of their theological creativity, the earliest Christians – especially the hellenistic ones – were all inventive and that all of the Jews of the same period were hidebound traditionalists. See Sandmel's, S. comments about the supposed ‘sterility’ of first-century Judaism, in The First Christian Century in Judaism and Christianity (New York: Oxford, 1969) 101 n. 15.Google Scholar

[30] Rost, , Judaism 119Google Scholar. Eissfeldt, O. (The Old Testament, an Introduction [New York: Harper and Row, 1965] 612)Google Scholar has stated that many of these psalms ‘are by nature timeless and hardly permit a more precise dating’.

[31] This point is of course reversible: the use of χριστου κυριου in Psalm of Solomon 18 does not control its usage or its Vorlage in PsSol 17. 32.