Fishbane, Michael
FISHBANE, MICHAEL
FISHBANE, MICHAEL (1943– ), U.S. scholar of Bible and Midrash. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after early studies in philosophy and Jewish thought in America and Israel he became a student of Nahum M. *Sarna and Nahum N. *Glatzer and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Brandeis University (1967 and 1971). He held a number of academic appointments in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University (1969–90). He served as the Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies in the Divinity School, the Committee on Jewish Studies, and the College of the University of Chicago (from 1990), where he was also a lecturer in the Law School.
Fishbane's initial work deals with literary and intertextual themes from the Hebrew Bible. In Text and Texture: Studies in Biblical Literature (1979), he demonstrates how biblical authors and redactors utilize stylistic and compositional devices in narratives and narrative units in speeches and prayers and in themes and motifs in order to convey the historical, cultural, and theological message of the Bible. In Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (1985) Fishbane explores the existence and function of diverse forms of exegesis and interpretation in the Bible itself (scribal, legal, theological, prophetic-oracular). He thereby shows that not only is Hebrew Scripture the primary document for the exegetical tradition of Judaism and Christianity, but that it is an exegetical work in its own right. His Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (2003) is a study of myth in the Hebrew Bible and mythmaking in classical rabbinic literature and medieval Jewish mysticism. He demonstrates that certain types of myth are endemic in Jewish theology and are not contradictory to aspects of monotheism, diametrically opposing the contention that there was no myth in the rabbinic age (Ephraim E. Urbach), and that it is a late and foreign implant in medieval Spanish Kabbalah (Gershom *Scholem).
Fishbane's point that textual interpretation explicates the plain-sense of primary sources in their original cultural, historical, and social settings, while also generating new values and explications in subsequent eras, is found in his The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (1989). This interpretative process informing Jewish religious thought also illuminates his The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thoughtand Theology (1998), a series of essays dealing with the role Scriptural exegesis plays in Jewish speculative theology as well as ritual practice. His The Kiss of God: Mythical and Spiritual Death in Judaism (1994), awarded the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought, explores selected rabbinic, philosophic, and mystical texts on the passion for religious perfection expressed as the love of God unto death itself, including acts of martyrdom and ritual replacements for actual death. Fishbane is also the author of the first full-length commentary on the Sabbath and festival Haftarot (2002).
Fishbane's published articles and reviews in scholarly books and journals range from ancient biblical thought to the existential theology of Martin *Buber and Franz *Rosenzweig; and show how Jewish culture is permeated and regenerated by exegetical creativity. He served as editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society Bible Commentary (for Prophets and Writings). Fishbane's life's work in tilling sacred texts and tracing subsurface traditions has led him to new explorations in the history of exegesis and theology and to projects involving cultural pedagogy and interreligious dialogue.
[Zev Garber (2nd ed.)]