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“This is the first modern attempt to understand the Syriac manuscripts of the Psalms of Solomon in relationship to the Greek text. Most scholars who have written about the Psalms of Solomon have either ignored the question or have assumed the Syriac text to be dependent upon the Greek. … Trafton’s purpose is to assess the value of the Syriac text, to determine the place of the Syriac in the textual tradition (p. 4), and to determine the relative value of the Syriac as a textual witness for the Psalms of Solomon (p. 20). After an introductory chapter, he identifies the witnesses to the Psalms of Solomon and surveys the history of research on the Syriac version of the text (chap. 2). Chap. 3 (60% of the volume) provides a detailed comparison of the Greek and Syriac readings, verse-by-verse through the psalms, including exhaustive citations from the secondary literature (a major contribution in itself). … Chap. 4 attempts to determine the Vorlage of the Syriac and Chap. 5 appraises its importance as a textual witness to the Psalms of Solomon. … Trafton has made a substantial contribution to research on the Psalms of Solomon, providing the first detailed analysis of the Syriac text over against the Greek and an exhaustive collation of the secondary literature. He has, for the first time, added the fragment ‘S’ to the collation of the Syriac MSS. He has confirmed the relationship of the Syriac text traditions to the Greek, and has provided a reasonable integration of the Greek and Syriac stemmata which confirms the close affinity of the Syriac to MS #253 and its family. Even if the Syriac cannot at the present time be proven to be a translation directly from the Hebrew, it is one of the oldest witnesses to the Greek text, reflecting the condition in the tenth century of a MS similar to MS #253 and its group.”
— Robert B. Wright, Journal of Biblical Literature