Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

paleographic dating ofWords of the Luminariesa(4Q504) around 150

b.c.e., and the lack of explicit sectarian terminology, it has been suggested

thatWords of the Luminaries (Divre Ha-me}orot)may plausibly be pre-

sectarian. The composition apparently utilized the same periodization of

history found in the EnochicApocalypse of Weeks,which may indicate a

provenance in groups with affinities to the Enochic writings. Many the-

matic and vocabulary correspondences between the prayers in the Scrolls

and rabbinic prayers have been adduced, but only very rarely are they

unique. More generally, the vocabulary and character of both groups of

prayers are dependent on Scripture, and specific shared features should

probably be attributed to common streams of tradition rather than direct

literary dependence. Even though there is no direct relation between the

two corpora, the scrolls demonstrate that the fixation of prayer after

Yavneh was not a new invention but the institutionalization of practices

that already existed in Second Temple times.

Similar issues of comparison may be made for theSongs for the Sab-

bath Sacrifice,theBlessings(4Q286-290), and the hymnic material in

Mysteriesc(4Q301), which have been characterized as mystical due to the

language of awe and mystery. Even though the medieval Hekhalot litera-

ture attests to a different kind of mystical practice, the style of the hymns

in the Hekhalot seems to go back to such Second Temple precursors.

Whereas a specific ritual is assured for theBlessings,thePurification

Liturgies,and the prayers and songs with an exorcistic character, it is dis-

puted whether, for example, theHodayot,theBless My Soul,and the

Noncanonical Psalmswere composed for private prayer or reading or for

communal recitation. The different collections ofHodayotfrom Caves 1

and 4 stand apart in the corpus on account of the highly unique and per-

sonal songs in the middle of the large Cave 1Thanksgiving Scroll.These

songs have been read as autobiographical expressions of a leading figure

praising God for release from affliction, for the revelation of his wonders,

and for having placed hymns in his mouth to instruct the lowly. More than

other hymns, they contrast God’s greatness to human smallness. The sug-

gestion that the author may be the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in

the pesharim (hence the name “Teacher Hymns”) is attractive but remains

hypothetical. SomeHodayotcollections also contain community hymns in

which the “I” of the hymn may refer to individual members of the group.

Whereas older scholarship generally referred only to the anthological

style of the hymns and prayers, it has become clear that they are often

scripturalized in multiple respects. They use scriptural language but often

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The Dead Sea Scrolls

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:04 PM