The Dead Sea Scrolls - Session Four

Prayer and Worship in the Dead Sea Scrolls

The discovery of so many prayers and liturgies at Qumran is significant.  It fills in a huge gap in our understanding of prayer in Second Temple Judaism.  Eileen Schuller has noted:

“One thing that is distinctive is that the community of Qumran put their prayers into written from. This was in marked contrast to the practice of subsequent centuries in rabbinic Judaism which discouraged the setting down of prayer in writing (t. Shabb. 13.4).  One of the difficulties in studying Jewish prayer (particularly as it developed after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70) is that although there are scattered reference, and occasionally even the actual words of blessings in the Mishnah and in the Talmuds, prayer was basically oral. As mentioned earlier, the earliest preserved copies of the Siddur [the Jewish Prayer Book] are dated only to the ninth century [AD/CE]. The scrolls fill in a stage in the development of Jewish prayer-forms that previously had been without written texts.” Eileen Sculler, The Dead Sea Scrolls: What Have We Learned 50 Years On?, 59.

This week we are looking at a variety of liturgical and prayer-related texts that come from the life of the community.  In particular, we will look in close detail at the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (Vermes 329-39).  I will also be sharing another article by Dr. Schuller that briefly describes the liturgical material and prayers discovered in the Qumran caves. 

Liturgical Prayers (Vermes, Section C)

There are a variety of fragmentary prayer texts that give us a sense of the kind of prayers the community prayed, and perhaps even the contexts in which they were prayed. Browsing through these texts give us a sense of the liturgical and spiritual life of the community. I would suggest that you skim through some of these prayers in this section as you might skim through pages of the Book of Common Prayer during a boring sermon.  “Flipping through the Prayer Book”, taking a 30,000 foot view, gives us an opportunity to get a broad sense of what was going on.  Look at a couple of prayers in detail, to get a sense of the content, but pay careful attending to the form, and see if you can tease out the function from the form. In the course outline I have suggested looking at particular texts, but feel free to skim through any of the texts in section C of Vermes (Calendars, Liturgies, and Prayers, pp 347-399).

Fragments of 4QBerakhot (Blessings)

Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifices (Vermes 329-339)

The other important question that we will be examining, is “what did the community think was happening” when they prayed, especially when they gathered.  The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifices provides some interesting insights in this respect. There is a sense that somehow earthly worship is joined to celestial worship.  Sometimes this text has been called “The Angelic Liturgy.” The Book of Ezekiel heavily influences this text. It may be helpful to review Ezekiel chapters 1, 10 & 40-48.  As Vermes ( 329) points out, a couple of terms from ancient and medieval Jewish mysticism (Merkabah – “the divine throne-chariot” & Hekhaloth – “heavenly palaces”) may offer some descriptive help in understanding what is happening in these texts.  An important question for consideration is to what degree are these texts actual liturgies in which the community participated, or idealized, imaginative celestial liturgies? Please read these texts carefully and in detail.

Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice

The Temple Scroll (Vermes 191-220)

Another important text is the Temple Scroll. Opinion is divided as to whether the Temple Scroll is a sectarian or non-sectarian text. Hartmut Stegemann proposed that it was kind of a “Sixth Book of the Torah”.  Others see it as a text unique to the community.  Don’t spend a lot of time on this text. Just dip in and read the occasional paragraph.  It deals with the building and contents/furniture of the Temple, as well worship, sacrifice, and feasts.  Again, the question before us is, is this an actual description of the Temple, or is it idealized, or even metaphorical?

The Temple Scroll

Calendars (also in Vermes, section C)

We will not spend any time looking at the calendrical texts, although they are important for helping us to understand the pattern and cycle of community worship.  These are quite complicated and esoteric text.  What is significant is that they reveal that the sectarian community used a solar calendar as opposed to the lunar calendar that was at use in Jerusalem.  We have discussed this before in relation to the legitimacy/illegitimacy of festivals being kept according to either calendar and in relation to the Pesher texts and the attack made on the Teacher of Righteousness on the Day of Atonement.