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The Canticle of the Heavenly Host (Luke 2.14) in History and Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2004

BIRGER OLSSON
BIRGER OLSSON
Affiliation:
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, S-223 62 Lund, Sweden
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Abstract

The angels still do not know how to sing during Christmas night. Some have three lines in Luke 2.14, others only two. Some have good liturgical hymns in their textbooks, others must use bad prose versions. This article reconstructs a Hebrew version with its focus on the righteous remnant of Israel, the Anawim in Jerusalem who saw Jesus as the beginning of the restoration of Israel, and goes on to analyse the original and the liturgical versions in Greek, different Latin translations and renderings into Syriac and Coptic. Finally it gives some later interpretations of the canticle in literature, art and music. There are good reasons to include much more of reception history into the NT discipline.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , April 2004 , pp. 147 - 166
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Main paper given at SNTS Bonn, 2003. I was asked to read a main paper at the Atlanta meeting in 1986, when Raymond E. Brown was president. I prepared a paper about interpretations of the Gospel of John, but for family reasons I could not go to Atlanta. I want to dedicate this paper to Professor Brown, who became honorary doctor at the University of Uppsala at the same time as I got my doctoral degree. I have not the same topic as in 1986. I am older now and live more together with the angels. Professor Brown has also written about the angels in Luke 2.