How Did People Pray? The Emergence of Prayer as a New Religious Category in Late Antiquity

Is There a Right Way to Pray?

Prayer is often perceived as a natural and universal human activity and, in a religious context, as an act at the heart of all religions. Yet although many prayers by various figures are mentioned in biblical literature, prayer is not formulated there as a binding religious category, nor does it have a normative framework that clearly distinguishes it from other religious activities. Only in the first centuries CE do clear and comprehensive rules begin to appear in Jewish and Christian literature concerning fundamental issues related to prayer, such as its purpose, structure and wording, time and space, and the status of prayer’s agents—the people who pray.

Throughout the series, we will examine the roots of this turning point, which involved profound changes in anthropological and theological perceptions. Contrary to the assumption that prayer is a spiritual, intimate, and natural act, we will examine how rabbinic literature, through the practice of prayer, establishes new religious sensibilities that act upon human beings on various levels—from their needs and intentions, through their personal and communal emotions, to the body itself. Our working premise will be that the rise of prayer as a central religious practice expresses a broad transformation that does not occur in a vacuum, but as part of wider processes taking place at the same time in other religions, particularly Christianity. We will focus on selected issues from Tractate Berakhot in the Babylonian Talmud, alongside a study of relevant sources from Second Temple literature, the New Testament, and early Christian literature, which will accompany the discussion as reading materials throughout the series.

Dr. Shraga Bik is a senior lecturer in the Department of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.