Ritual and worship at qumran

This chapter describes key aspects of the ritual and worship of a specific group within Second Temple Judaism, especially as can be known from the written texts preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls. These manuscripts, discovered some seventy years ago in the caves near the site of Qumran, provide much previously unknown information, both descriptions about ritual practice and actual texts of many prayers, psalms, blessings, and liturgies that are known only because they were preserved in the caves. Many of these scrolls are very fragmentary, and any reconstruction of the details of worship practice must remain tentative. The Scrolls contain collections of set prayers for the days of the week, the days of the months, for feasts, songs for the Sabbath, a collection of Thanksgiving Psalms (Hodayot) that are expressive of the distinctive worldview and spirituality of this group, and liturgies for entrance into the community through a covenant renewal ceremony.