Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology

The world we engage with is a vibrant collage brought to consciousness by language and our creative imagination. It is in the symbolic forms of language that the human world of value is revealed, and it is there that religious scholar Michael Fishbane dwells in his latest contribution to Jewish thought. In Fragile Finitude, Fishbane clears new ground for theological living 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 rabbinic tradition, the third on personal development, and the final on transcendent and 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.