"In this almost painfully beautiful book... Fishbane... explores the question of the kind of canon, privileged status, or Logos, the Torah actually has for the post-modern Western Jew. " Theology Today
"A book well worth reading." The Jerusalem Post
"This wonderful volume documents the intellectual and spiritual odyssey of one of North America s foremost Jewish biblical scholars." Shofar
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"In this almost painfully beautiful book... Fishbane... explores the question of the kind of canon, privileged status, or Logos, the Torah actually...
The bible remains one of the major literary achievements of human history, comprizing over 60 documents, with as many contributors, and composed over many centuries. In this book, Michael Fishbane approaches the Hebrew Bible from a literary point of view. He demonstrates how, just as orators use particular techniques such as repetition and pause to convey their message in the way they requie, so too the Hebrew Bible authors used a range of literary devices to communicate a religious message applicable to particular historical moments, each with their own political, moral and theological...
The bible remains one of the major literary achievements of human history, comprizing over 60 documents, with as many contributors, and composed over ...
The lines of Michael Fishbane's book trace the spiritual face of Judaism in one of its many appearances. Fishbane explores the quest for spiritual perfection in early rabbinic sources and in Jewish philosophy and mysticism. The "kiss of God," a symbol for union with God, and the ritual practices--meditation and performance--connected with it are presented.
The book identifies a persistent passion for religious perfection, expressed as the love of God unto death itself. The masters of the tradition cultivated this ideal in all periods, in diverse genres, and in different modes....
The lines of Michael Fishbane's book trace the spiritual face of Judaism in one of its many appearances. Fishbane explores the quest for spiritual ...
Holiness in Words: Abraham Joshua Heschel's Poetics of Piety is both an introduction to reading Heschel's works in English, and an in-depth study of the way his literary style can transform the consciousness of readers. Heschel's life and works respond to the contemporary crisis in religion, formulating positions on faith and despair, racism and social justice, the Holocaust, interreligious dialogue, and the availability of God's presence. We study Heschel's theory and use of literary language, his "poetics of piety," in order to elucidate his narrative strategy to teach God-centered (or...
Holiness in Words: Abraham Joshua Heschel's Poetics of Piety is both an introduction to reading Heschel's works in English, and an in-depth study of t...
Contemporary theology, and Jewish theology in particular, Michael Fishbane asserts, now lies fallow, beset by strong critiques from within and without. For Jewish reality, a coherent and wide-ranging response in thoroughly modern terms is needed. "Sacred ""Attunement" is Fishbane s attempt to renew Jewish theology for our time, in the larger context of modern and postmodern challenges to theology and theological thought in the broadest sense. The first part of the book regrounds theology in this setting and opens up new pathways through nature, art, and the theological dimension as a...
Contemporary theology, and Jewish theology in particular, Michael Fishbane asserts, now lies fallow, beset by strong critiques from within and without...
Belief in a spirit world, and a blissful or agonizing afterlife, is one of the most pervasive and deeply-rooted characteristics of religion. This volume offers a wide-ranging exploration of this basic religious theme. Most of the case studies are drawn from Jewish and Christian tradition, providing in-depth coverage of Judaism and Christianity from late Antiquity through the Medieval period. There are also examples from Islamic, Japanese, and Chinese traditions for a comparative perspective with Western traditions. Several chapters deal with the formative period of Jewish and Christian...
Belief in a spirit world, and a blissful or agonizing afterlife, is one of the most pervasive and deeply-rooted characteristics of religion. This volu...
Exegesis--interpretation and explanation of sacred texts--is the quintessence of rabbinic thought. Through such means and methods, the written words of Hebrew Scripture have been extended since antiquity, and given new voices for new times. In this lucid and often poetic book, Michael Fishbane delineates the connections between biblical interpretation and Jewish religious thought.
How can a canon be open to new meanings, given that it is believed to be immutable? Fishbane discusses the nature and rationale of this interpretative process in a series of studies on ancient Jewish...
Exegesis--interpretation and explanation of sacred texts--is the quintessence of rabbinic thought. Through such means and methods, the written word...
Midrash is arguably the most ancient genre of Jewish literature, forming a voluminous body of scriptural exegesis over the course of centuries. There is hardly anything in the ancient rabbinic universe that was not taught through this medium. The diversity and development of that creative profusion are presented here in a new light. The contributors cover a broad range of texts, from late antiquity to the modern period and from all the centres of literary creativity, including non-rabbinic and non-Jewish literature, so that the full extent of the modes and transformations of Midrash can be...
Midrash is arguably the most ancient genre of Jewish literature, forming a voluminous body of scriptural exegesis over the course of centuries. There ...
Nahum Sarna's distinctive and original scholarship has taken in a wide range of subject areas from work on Genesis and the Psalms to his Jewish Bible commentary and the English translation of the Ketuvim. At first Assistant Professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in the 1950s, he was Dora Golding Professor of Bible at Brandeis University from 1965 to his retirement. This collection of 22 essays reflects Professor Sarna's breadth of interests, with contributions from the late Gershon Cohen on the Hebrew Crusade Chronicle and the Ashkenazic tradition; Judah Goldin on...
Nahum Sarna's distinctive and original scholarship has taken in a wide range of subject areas from work on Genesis and the Psalms to his Jewish Bib...
