Michael Fishbane

Nathan Cummings Distinguished Service Professor of Jewish Studies. Work explores Jewish texts and traces subsurface traditions, in the history of exegesis and theology and leading him to projects involving cultural pedagogy and interreligious dialogue. He published trail-blazing works in a wide field of Jewish subjects, from the ancient Near East and biblical studies to rabbinics, the history of Jewish interpretation, Jewish mysticism, and modern Jewish thought, particularly the existential theology of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig. Among his books are Text and Texture: Close Readings of Selected Biblical Texts and The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology (1998). Both Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (1985) and The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism (1994) were awarded the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought. In 2002, he published the first full-length commentary on the prophetic lectionary (Haftarot). He is now completing a multileveled comprehensive commentary presenting the full range of Jewish interpretations on the Song of Songs.