Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns)

A collection of some thirty first person Hebrew hymns of thanksgiving recovered from Qumran, named from their recurring opening formula "I thank you, O Lord." Several hymns speak in a distinctive individual voice describing persecution, chosenness and revelation, leading many scholars to attribute a core group, the so called Teacher Hymns, to the sect's founding Teacher of Righteousness himself, while a separate group, the Community Hymns, speaks more generally for the covenant community. The collection is a major witness to Qumran theology, its language of human lowliness before divine grace and its sense of living already among the elect.