Prof. Esther G. Chazon is Professor Emerita in the Hebrew Literature Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She served as Director of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature in the Hebrew University’s Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies. She earned her Ph. D. from the Hebrew University and has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford Universities. Chazon has edited or co-edited nine books, including Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A Critical Anthology (Routledge, 1997), Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone (Brill 2004), and seven volumes of the Proceedings of the Orion Center. Her Words of the Luminaries: 4Q504, 4Q505, 4Q506, a critical edition and commentary on a scroll of weekly prayers found at Qumran, is forthcoming from Brill in its Dead Sea Scrolls Edition (DSSE 3).
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June 28, 2026
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The discoveries from the caves of Qumran yielded hundreds of psalms and prayers. Some of these derived from the sectarian community known as the Yaḥad, who lived there. Others came from diverse Jewish communities, and were preserved and presumably used by the Yaḥad as part of their twice-daily “offering of the lips” as an alternative to the “defiled” sacrifices being offered in the Temple. These documents offer invaluable evidence concerning the origin of fixed communal prayer in Judaism.
The discoveries from the caves of Qumran yielded hundreds of psalms and prayers. Some of these derived from the sectarian community known as the Yaḥad, who lived there. Others came from diverse Jewish communities, and were preserved and presumably used by the Yaḥad as part of their twice-daily “offering of the lips” as an alternative to the “defiled” sacrifices being offered in the Temple. These documents offer invaluable evidence concerning the origin of fixed communal prayer in Judaism.
