The Dead Sea Scrolls (post #3): Blessings and Prayers

Blessings

1QS (Community Rule) Col. VI (p. 83):

In every place were there are ten men of the Community council, there should not be missing amongst them a priest. [...] And when they prepare the table to dine or the new wine for drinking, the priest shall stretch out his hand as the first to bless the first fruits of the bread and the new wine.

Similarly in 1Q28a Col. II (p. 103).

Rabbinical Judaism is characterised by many blessings as part of daily life, including on eating and drinking, of which there is no sign in the Toraitical religion. Here we see that blessings on eating and drinking, and indeed commencing a meal with a blessing over bread, preceded rabbinical Judaism.

Another example is given in 1QA (Community Rule) Col. X (p. 95):

And before stretching out my hand to get fat on the tasty fruit of the earth (להדשן בעדני תנובת תבל) [...] I shall bless Him for (His) great marvels.

In rabbinical Judaism, all blessings begin with the fixed formula ברוך אתה ה׳ אלהינו מלך העולם "Blessed are You, Lord our God, Sovereign of the Universe". The first three words of this occur twice in the Bible; at some point they got picked up as the definitive way to start a prayer. In col. XI and elsewhere we see blessings beginning ברוך אתה אלי; in 1QHa V, ברוך אתה אדוני; in 4.Q414 and elsewhere, ברוך אתה אל ישראל.

War Scroll Col. XX (p. 191)

[For the Instructor למשכיל, pr]aises and prayer, to bow down and entreat always, from period to period: when the light comes to [its] domini[on] through the course of the day, according to its regulation, in accordance with the laws חוקות of the great luminary; at the return of the evening, at the departure of light, when the dominion of the darkness begins. [Etc]

Reminiscent of the forms of the first blessing before the שמע in the morning and the evening.

4Q428 4QHodayot.b = 1QHa XIX

[Blessed are You, L]ord, Who have given [your servant] [the insight of knowledge to understand your works]

[ברוך אתה א]דוני אשר נתתה[ לעבדכה] [שכל דעה להבין בנפלאותיכה]

Reminiscent of the blessing אשר נתן לשכוי בינה להבחין בן יום ולילה in the modern פסוקי דזימרא.

Prayer(s)

1QA (Community Rule) Col IX (p. 93) (may be better preserved in 4Q256 XVIII, 4Q258 VII, VIII, 4Q259 III, IV, 4Q260 I):

He shall bless his Creator [... and with the offering of] his lips he shall bless Him.

[ותרומת] שפתים יברכנו

(Similar phraseology in col. X, and also in 4Q256 (Community Rule), Col. XIX (p. 515).)

With the destruction of the Temple, ritual sacrifices ceased. Prayers became instituted as "the offering of our lips", based on Hoshea 14:3, but here we see this was also used to describe prayer whilst the Temple still stood. Possibly this description arose following the destruction of the First Temple; it's worth also remembering that the institution of the synagogue arose whilst the Second Temple stood.

Col. X (p. 95):

When I start to stretch out my hands and feet I shall bless His name; when I start to go out and to come in, to sit and to stand up, and lying down in my bed I shall extol Him;

Most of this is putting Deuteronomy 6:7 and 11:19 into practice; the first part is also reminiscent of the practice amongst some communities of saying באיאמ״ה מתיר אסורים (in ברכת השחר) whilst stretching in bed prior to getting up.

4Q504 Words of the Luminaries דברי המאורות Col. V (p. 1015) (following immediately upon the final quotation given from this work below):

For You are a living God, you alone, and there is no other apart from you. כיא אתה אל חי לבדכה ואין זולתכה

Reminiscent of אין אלהים זולתך in the first ברכה after the שמע, though a quick grep reveals similar wording (though in the third person) in Mark 12:32 and 1 Corinthians 8:4, though. As mentioned above, the Words of the Luminaries is Herodian, so antedates the NT.

4Q215a Time of Righteousness (p. 457)

The age of peace has arrived [...]. Every t[ongue] will bless Him, and every man will bow down before him, [and they will be] of on[e mi]nd.

Reminiscent of עָלֵנוּ, which the commentary in the Birnbaum Machzor says that the lack of reference to rebuilding the Temple or Jerusalem suggests antedates the Destruction of the Temple.