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14. DAILY AND FESTIVAL PRAYERS AT QUMRAN
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301 CHAPTER FOURTEEN DAILY AND FESTIVAL PRAYERS AT QUMRAN Dennis T. Olson INTRODUCTION The hundreds of fragments of morning and evening prayers found at Qumran help to fill a large gap in our knowledge about the development of Jewish prayer and worship in the interim period between the final formation of the Hebrew Bible and the rise of rabbinic and early Christian practices of prayer and daily liturgy. Portions of morning and evening prayers from the Qumran community have been found in Cave 4 in the Daily Prayers of 4Q503 (= 4QprQuot) and in the Words of the Lights in 4Q504-506 (= 4QdibHama–c). In addition to these regular daily prayers, fragments of Prayers for Festivals used on special feast days were also discovered in Qumran Cave 4 (4Q507–509) and Cave 1 (1Q34–1Q34bis). Many of these manuscript witnesses are quite fragmentary and often lack a context for interpreting their full significance. The more complete text of the “Prayer for the Day of Atonement” in 1Q34–1Q34bis duplicates some sections of 4Q509 and repeats several themes and motifs from 4Q507 and 4Q508. This more complete text helps to provide a broader interpretive context for the fragmentary festival prayers of Cave 4. In fact, 1Q34–1Q34bis, 4Q507, 4Q508, and 4Q509 may be four versions of the same document. HISTORY OF RESEARCH 4Q503 The collection of 225 fragments in 4Q503 was first published by M. Baillet in 1982.1 Baillet and C. H. Hunzinger have offered a plausible 1. Maurice Baillet, “Paroles des Luminaires (i),” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7; Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 105–36. 302 DAILY AND FESTIVAL PRAYERS AT QUMRAN reconstruction of the sequence and columns in which the fragments fall, although several of the fragments are difficult to place.2 B. Nitzan has noted the recurring and regularized structure of the individual morning and evening prayers.3 The structure of the prayers is as follows: 1. Heading—specifies the time of the prayer (for example, “On the…of the month in the evening” or “And when the sun rises to shine over the earth”) and a liturgical direction, “they will bless and they will answer and they will say.” 2. An initial series of blessings—”Blessed be the God of Israel who does/has done…” 3. References to the night (“And the night…at the beginning…of the revolutions of the vessels of light”) or to the day (“And this day he has renewed…for us dominion…”). 4. A concluding blessing to God (“Blessed be you, God of Israel” or Blessed be your name, God of Israel”). 5. Final benediction—”Peace (be) upon you, O Israel.” 6. A division between individual prayers is marked either by a line or a blank space. These fragmentary prayers are dated to 100–75 B.C.E., largely due to the Hasmonean Hebrew script in which they are written.4 4Q504–4Q506 The 182 fragments of prayers of 4Q504, 4Q505, and 4Q506 involve a weekly cycle of daily prayers. They were first published by M. Baillet with some changes in readings and interpretations by K. G. Kuhn and M. R. Lehmann.5 Scholars have been able to reconstruct a number of the 2. Baillet, ibid., 105. See the suggestion concerning col. 3 and the repositioning of frags. 2 and 3 in Joseph M. Baumgarten, “4Q503 (Daily Prayers) and the Lunar Calendar,” RevQ 12 (1987): 399–407. 3. Bilhah Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (STDJ 12; Leiden: Brill, 1994), esp. the summary on 70. 4. Baillet, ibid., 105. A similar dating is offered by Baumgarten, “4Q503 (Daily Prayers),” 399, and by Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Early History of the Jewish Liturgy,” in The Synagogue in Late Antiquity (ed. L. I. Levine; Philadelphia: ASOR, 1987), 33. 5. Baillet’s initial research on 4Q504 was “Psaumes, hymnes, cantiques et prières dans les manuscrits de Qumrân,” in Le Psautier: Ses orignes, Ses problèmes littéraires, Son influence (Orientalia et Biblica Lovaniensia 4; Louvain: Université de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste, 1962), 389–405. Baillet first published 4Q504 frags. 1–2 and frag. 8 with extensive notes in “Un recueil liturgique de Qumrân, grotte 4: ‘Les Paroles des Luminaires,’” RB 68 (1961): 195–250. Some changes in readings were offered by Karl [54.89.24.147] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:07 GMT) DENNIS T. OLSON 303 prayer fragments of 4Q504 into a sequence of daily prayers that reflect a designated theme assigned to...