If I Forget You, Jerusalem! - Studies on the Old Testament - Niels Peter Lemche
6. Psalm 2: Between Past and Future
If I Forget You, Jerusalem! - Studies on the Old Testament - Niels Peter Lemche
Niels Peter Lemche [+]
University of Copenhagen
Niels Peter Lemche, has been publishing in the field of Old Testament studies for fifty years. He has been both Assistant Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, from 1978 to 1986 and Professor of Theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1987 to 2013. He is the founder of the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, and a member of the board of the Copenhagen International Seminar (Routledge). He has recently edited (in co-operation with Dr. Jim West) Jeremiah in History and Tradition (Routledge, 2019).
Description
Does Ps 2 have its background in the time of King David, or does it belong to the times of the Ptolemaic Empire? Or perhaps sometime in between? We clearly find elements of the Egyptian royal ideology in Ps 2, but also of other ideas about royalty prevalent in Western Asia. In light of the present rewriting of the history of Israel the psalm is hardly from the time of a non-existent Israelite empire in the 10th century BCE. It more likely belongs to the Ptolemaic period. Then issue arises: Is the psalm messianic?