My Lips Play Flute for the Highest: Jewish Hymns and Prayers Before Jesus - Hardcover

by Torleif Elgvin (Author)

My Lips Play Flute for the Highest presents fifty-five poetic texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other early Jewish writings: hymns, psalms, liturgies, petitions, visions, and end-time scenarios. In psalms and prayers we may come close to the souls of ancient Judeans, who pour out their sufferings, laments, hopes, and praises to their God. We encounter a plurality of end-time hopes, with or without messianic actors on earth. Jewish piety from the last two centuries before the turn of the era emerges vibrant and powerful, but also sensitive and full of hope. Introductions to the various scrolls and writings inform readers about how scholars understand these texts and where scholarship locates them in time and space. This book provides a moving and vital entry into early Judaism, before the emergence of the Jesus movement and rabbinic Judaism.

Author Biography

Torleif Elgvin is emeritus professor of biblical and Jewish studies at NLA University College in Oslo. He has a PhD in biblical studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was from 1992 part of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication team. His recent books include The Literary Growth of the Song of Songs in the Hasmonean and Early-Herodian Periods (2018) and Warrior, King, Servant, Savior: Messianism in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Texts (2022).