Paul Heger, Institutionalized Routine Prayers at Qumran: Fact or Assumption? Posthumously edited by Bernard M. Levinson. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019.... In other words, perhaps the “intrinsic distinction between the various approaches to God” (p. 41) that Heger insists is necessary to understanding ancient Jewish prayer on its own terms is not so intrinsic, after all. It therefore remains to be seen whether we can produce a functional “grammar” or uncover a “native theory” of prayer in ancient Judaism, but Heger’s study, by pushing to apply strict definitions to the terms we employ in describing ancient Jewish prayer, invites us to think about what consensuses we should revisit in order to achieve such a goal, while also displaying for us the potential shortcomings in any scholarly attempt to taxonomize ancient literature.
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