Where did it come from?

It is fair to say that the importance of Jewish psalms and hymns from the Second Temple period for the purposes of this study cannot be overstated. As Dead Sea Scrolls scholar George Brooke has noted, “The texts that reflect the prayer and worship of a community and its members are a, probably the, key indication of what the community thought particularly important."* Thus a careful look at early Jewish psalms and hymns will help us get to the heart of some of the most important aspects of early Jewish communities, and will be a good pointer to some of the traditions and values inherited by the earliest Christians, many of whom were themselves part of Jewish communities.—Matthew Gordley, New Testament Christological Hymns, p. 61 *George Brooks, "Aspects of the Theological Significance of Prayer and Worship on the Qumran Scrolls," in Penner, Penner, and Wassen, Prayer and Poetry, 54 (emphasis original)