Words of the Luminaries
4Q504, 4Q505, 4Q506
Esther G. Chazon(Author)
Brill (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 7. October 2026
Book
Hardback
978-90-04-75936-7 (ISBN)
Description
Discovered at Qumran and comprising a prayer for each day of the week, the Words of the Luminaries offers new perspectives on prayer during the Second Temple period and on Jewish and Christian liturgy after the temple's destruction in 70 CE. Dated well before the sectarian settlement at Qumran, it constitutes our oldest surviving evidence of daily, communal prayer. This volume furnishes the first complete reconstruction and critical edition of this work, also featuring an extensive commentary. Advanced computer technologies and digital images of the scrolls, as well as literary, scribal, and material methods, enabled reconstructing the largest manuscript (4Q504). 4Q504's early paleographical date is significant for the implications drawn in this volume's essays, including for the work's historical context, the sectarian Yahad's reception of nonsectarian texts, scriptural use and interpretation in prayers, and uncovering routine communal prayer while the temple was operative.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 310 mm
Width: 237 mm
ISBN-13
978-90-04-75936-7 (9789004759367)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Esther G. Chazon, Professor Emerita, Hebrew Literature Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She served as Director of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, and has published extensively on Second Temple period literature.