Studies in Jewish Prayer

This volume offers new insights into the origins of formal Jewish prayer, using Dead Sea Scrolls material and related texts. It also looks at the relationship between magic and prayer in Rabbinic thought. Modern Jewish prayer is examined from the point of view of Hasidic traditions and practices and there is a modern re-reading of the Haggadah.

This volume is a collection of essays devoted to aspects of Jewish liturgy and devotion as represented by texts from three historical periods, namely, Second Temple times, the Rabbinic age, and the modern period. The first of these periods is particularly topical, since it covers the times during which the Dead Sea Scrolls were produced: the recent complete publication of these documents is currently bearing fruit in amazingly rich, varied, and substantial research activities with the Scrolls taking centre place and, since they bear witness to an early and formative stage in the development of Jewish forms of prayer and liturgy, they are well represented in this volume. Furthermore, scholarly interest in Jewish Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha continues to flourish: many of these compositions are represented in fragmentary form in Dead Sea Scrolls documents, their evidence for the forms, content, and themes of Jewish prayer offering valuable insights into the different approaches and attitudes to prayer which are now emerging from studies of Second Temple times. Aspects of prayer in Jesephus''s writings are also analysed.