Understanding the History, Theology, and Community of the Psalms of Solomon in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls Kenneth Atkinson 1. Introduction Te eighteen Psalms of Solomon constitute a signifcant witness to Second Temple Jewish theology, liturgy, and history. 1 It is the most detailed extant pre-Christian witness to Jewish messianic thought. 2 As a poetic composition, the Psalms of Solomon is also among the earliest Jewish prayer books to have survived from antiquity. Its documentation of the 63 BCE Roman conquest of Jerusalem makes it a rare contempo- rary historical witness to events of the late Hasmonean period. However, considerable debate surrounds this collection of poems. Te identity of their authors is unknown; the community that likely produced and pre- served them is uncertain; and the manner of their composition, collec- tion, and redaction, are all disputed. 3 What could possibly shed light on these and many other questions surrounding the Psalms of Solomon is the contemporary collection of Second Temple Jewish documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Tis study seeks to go beyond a superfcial recounting of verbal par- allels to explore what the Dead Sea Scrolls may tell us about the Psalms of 1. For the contents and historical background of the Psalms of Solomon, see fur- ther Kenneth Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Histori- cal Background and Social Setting, JSJSup 84 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), esp. 2–14, 211–22. 2. See further Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 129–79. 3. Te Psalms of Solomon was likely written by multiple authors and collected together in its present form at some unknown date. For scholarship on this issue and the proposed authors of these poems, see further Kenneth Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2001), 395–429. -57- This e-offprint is provided for the author’s own use; no one else may post it online. Copyright © 2021 by SBL Press.