Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology

by Michael Fishbane

Publisher:

The University of Chicago Press

, 2024

The world we engage with is a vibrant collage brought to consciousness by language and our creative imagination. It is through the symbolic forms of language that the human world of value is revealed—this is where religious scholar Michael Fishbane dwells in his latest contribution to Jewish thought.

In Fragile Finitude, Fishbane clears new ground for a theological life through a novel reinterpretation of the Book of Job. On this basis, he offers a contemporary engagement with the four classical types of Jewish Scriptural exegesis. The first focuses on worldly experience, the second on communal forms of practice and thought in the rabbinical tradition, the third on personal development, and the fourth on transcendent, cosmic orientations. Through these four modes, Fishbane manages to transform Jewish theology from within, at once reinvigorating a long tradition and moving beyond it. What he offers is nothing short of a way to reorient our lives in relation to the divine and our fellow humans. Written from within the Jewish tradition, Fragile Finitude is intended for readers across the religious spectrum.

Product Details

• Title: Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology
• Author: Michael Fishbane
• Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
• Print Publication Date: 2024
• Logos Release Date: 2024
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9780226764290, 9780226764153, 022676415X, 022676429X
• Resource ID: LLS:9780226764290
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-11-16T09:26:09Z

About Michael Fishbane

Michael Fishbane was trained in Semitic languages, biblical studies, and Judaica. His writings span from the ancient Near East and biblical studies to rabbinics, the history of Jewish interpretation, Jewish mysticism, and modern Jewish thought. Among his many books are Text and Texture; Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel; Garments of Torah; The Kiss of God; and The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology. Both Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel and The Kiss of God won the National Jewish Book Award in scholarship. His commentary on the prophetic lectionary (Haftarot) in Judaism was published in 2002 (Jewish Publication Society Bible Commentary), and his book Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking was published in 2003 (Oxford University Press). He is now completing a multileveled comprehensive commentary presenting the full range of Jewish interpretations on the Song of Songs. His latest work, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology, was published in fall 2008 by the University of Chicago Press. In progress are a study of Jewish liturgical poetry and a treatment of spiritual exercises in Jewish religious history. Prof. Fishbane received a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other major grants, and has twice been a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University. Prof. Fishbane is a member of the American Academy of Jewish Research, and has been recently awarded a Lifetime Achievement in Textual Studies by the National Foundation of Jewish Culture. His life and work was written up in the forthcoming new edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica.