the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

DENNIS T. OLSON 303
prayer fragments of 4Q504 into a sequence of daily prayers that reflect a
designated theme assigned to each day of the week. 6 Thus, the first day
of the week commemorated creation. The fourth day of the week
(Wednesday) remembered the covenant at Sinai (4Q504 frag. 3, col. 2,
lines 5, 13). Friday focused on the confession of sin and forgiveness
(4Q504 frags. 1–2 col. 1, line 1–col. 7, line 3). Saturday was the day of
praise (4Q504 frags. 1–2 col. 7, line 4). In contrast to 4Q504, the fragmentary
character of 4Q505 defies any such reconstruction of their original
sequence. 4Q506 has some parallels to the more complete 4Q504,
and thus some of its fragments can be placed in a discernible sequence.
Bilhah Nitzan has found that the structure of the individual prayers of
the Words of the Lights is fairly similar to the Prayers for the Festivals
(1Q34–1Q34 bis , 4Q507–509). 7 The structure of these prayers appears to
include these elements:
1. Heading indicating the time of the prayer (“Thanksgiving for the day
of…”).
2. A petition asking God to remember (“Remember, O Lord, that”).
3. A series of historical remembrances drawn from Israel’s history and petitions
for present action—the main body of the prayer. 8
4. A closing blessing (“Blessed be the Lord who…us…”).
5. A congregational response (“Amen. Amen.”).
6. Divisions between the prayers are usually marked by a blank space or
rarely by special characters.
The three manuscripts of 4Q504, 4Q505, and 4Q506 are generally dated
to three different time periods, spanning the history of the Qumran community.
The Hasmonean Hebrew handwriting of 4Q504 dates it to
G. Kuhn, “Nachträge zur Konkordanz zu den Qumrantexten,” RevQ 4 (1963):
163–234 and Manfred R. Lehmann, “A Re-interpretation of 4Q Dibrê ham-
Me)oroth,” RevQ 5 (1964): 106–10. See also Maurice Baillet, “Remarques sur l’édition
des Paroles des Luminaires,” RevQ 5 (1964): 23–42. Baillet published all the prayer
fragments of 4Q504–4Q506 in “Paroles des Luminaires (ii),” “Paroles des Luminaires
(iii),” and “Prières pour les fêtes (i),” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7;
Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 137–75.
6. A plausible reconstruction of the sequence of the fragments was suggested by
Baillet, ibid., (DJD 7), 138, 170. Baillet is in turn partly dependent on the earlier
research by J. Starcky who proposed the sequence for frags. 1–2 and who was responsible
for separating some of the fragments that had become fused together one on top
of the other. See Jean Starcky, “Le travail d’édition des fragments manuscrits de
Qumrân,” RB 63 (1956): 66.
7. See Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry, esp. 71.
8. For a proposed chronological sequence of the historical remembrances in these
prayers, see Esther G. Chazon, “4QdibHam: Liturgy or Literature?” RevQ 15
(1991–92): 447–55.