In Honor of Esther G. Chazon
Our honoree, Professor Esther (Estelle) Glickler Chazon, began her academic studies in the Religion Department at Barnard College (Columbia University), New York, focusing on Judaism and Christianity (BA, 1971â1975). During this time, she also integrated a one-year program in Bible and Jewish history at the Hebrew University (1973â1974). After she made aliyah to Israel, she enrolled in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University, focusing on Hellenistic Judaism (MA, 1975â1981). From early on, Estherâs scholarship has encompassed the range of Second Temple literature, including both the Dead Sea Scrolls and Jewish works transmitted in translation via Christian channels as part of apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature. This broad interest is illustrated by her very first scholarly publication: âMosesâ Struggle for His Soul: A Prototype for the Testament of Abraham, the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra and the Apocalypse of Sedrachâ (1985/1986). Her distinctive field of expertise, however, is the literary-historical study of the poetic and liturgical works of that period, to which she was drawn while working on her Hebrew University doctoral dissertation, âA Liturgical Document from Qumran and Its Implications: âWords of the Luminariesâ (4QDibHam),â under the supervision of Professor Michael E. Stone. She was awarded the doctorate in 1992, summa cum laude.
Estherâs doctoral research was prompted by the exciting publication of numerous fragments of liturgical works from Qumran Cave 4 by Maurice Baillet in DJDÂ 7 (1982). In her dissertation, she focused on a single liturgical work that consists of daily prayers for the week. She produced an exemplary new edition that integrates a novel material reconstruction of its best-preserved copy (4Q504, supplemented by 4Q505â506) with detailed literary-historical commentary. While the dissertation was not published as such, it has yielded many subsequent articles, and the scholarly community eagerly awaits Estherâs revised and definitive edition of the Words of the Luminaries, which is forthcoming in Brillâs Dead Sea Scrolls Editions series.
Esther was quick to realize that the Words of the Luminaries sheds new light on the early history of Jewish liturgy, furnishing evidence for the rise of routine, fixed communal prayer already in the late Second Temple period. This insight went against the common opinion at that time, which assumed that this development took place only much later, as a spiritual response to the disappearance of sacrificial worship due to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70â¯CE. This recognition has led Esther to explore fundamental aspects of Jewish liturgy as reflected in Second Temple literature. To her investigations of the Words of the Luminaries, she added studies of other liturgical works found at Qumran or preserved elsewhere, analyzing their textual remains, generic properties, literary features, phenomenological dimensions, and theological concerns. Her work is typically based on careful examination of the extant textual and literary evidence, setting it within its proper cultural context, and making critical and cautious use of rabbinic and occasionally early Christian parallels without projecting the lattersâ constructs on earlier texts. In addition to her original inquiries into such sources, Esther was also a member of the international team of Scrolls editors, newly formed in the 1990s to accelerate the pace of publication of the Scrolls. She was entrusted with several texts, mainly of a liturgical nature, which she published in the DJD series.
When viewed from the perspective of the history of research, Estherâs work aligns with the revolutionary turn in the study of Hebrew poetry and Jewish liturgy which was sparked by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. She, along with scholars such as Bilhah Nitzan, Carol Newsom, Eileen Schuller, and others, published and analyzed a growing number of previously unknown works that have profoundly transformed our understanding of the development of the spiritual world of Judea in the HellenisticâRoman periodâthe era when classical Judaism took form and early Christianity was beginning to emerge.
Esther taught for many years through a special Hebrew University track in Prayer Studies, as well as in other departments of the Institute of Jewish Studies, including Hebrew Literature, Jewish Thought, and Bible. She has been a welcome visitor at prestigious universities around the world, including Harvard (2001, 2017, 2019), Cambridge (2003), Yale (2007), and Oxford (2014). Parallel to her teaching and research, Esther has played a key role in shaping the field of Qumran Studies as the longest-serving Director of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, established by Professor Michael E. Stone in 1995. She has been involved with the Orion Center from its inception, co-organizing most of its international symposiaâwhich have become a central venue for scholars in the field to present their innovative workâand co-editing their subsequent proceedings, all of which have been published in the STDJ series. She consistently broadened the international reach of the Orion Center, while proudly representing the Israeli community of Qumran scholars at the relevant learned societies, including the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), the International Organization for Qumran Studies (IOQS), and the Enoch Seminar.
Estherâs retirement from teaching coincided with the peak of the pandemic that swept the world in 2020â2022 and thus could not be properly marked at the time. Similarly, the Seventeenth Orion Symposium, which she had conceived and planned, had to be rescheduled several times, until we ultimately decided to conduct it in a fully virtual format. As all participants were scholarly colleagues whom Esther had personally invited, we felt that dedicating this resulting volume of symposium proceedings in her honor would be an appropriate tribute to her lasting contributions to the field. We take this opportunity to wish Esther many more years of fruitful intellectual activity, good health, and joy with her family.
The Editors