The imminent completion of the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls allows for a reassessment and reevaluation of many areas of early Judaism and Christianity. Prayer and poetry are two such areas in which this new corpus, containing more than 300 psalms, hymns, and prayers, allows for a review of existing theories and the proposal of new directions and ideas. This symposium will serve as a forum to analyze and integrate the various sources from the Second Temple period defined as prayer or poetry with the aim of clarifying our understanding of these phenomena in that time, as well as the implications for the study of both earlier material, as found in the Bible, and later literature and religious practice, as reflected in Jewish and Christian liturgy.