Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon

Download or read book Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon written by James H. Charlesworth and published by Burns & Oates. This book was released on 1998 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Odes of Solomon is recognized as the earliest Christian hymnbook. Questions, however, abound. Are the Odes essentially Jewish, Jewish-Christian, gnostic, or simply Christian? There is wide agreement that the Odes are related in some way to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel of John. Charlesworth argues that the Odes were composed in an early form of Aramaic-Syriac and, like the Psalter, in poetic parallelism. Pointing to parallels with the Thanksgiving Hymns and other Qumran texts, he concludes that the Odist had probably been an Essene before he became a Christian, a member of the Johannine community.