Ancient Hermeneutics and Reading Practices
Temple and Text
Philology
Religious Studies
Cultural Studies
Email: yael.fisch@gmail.com
Personal website: Yael Fisch
Current Projects:
My current project, Measuring the Temple: Architectural Ekphrasis and Mishnah Middot, is dedicated to the textual Jerusalem temple of the Mishnah and how Jews in the second century CE reimagined its architecture and why. I am interested in questions of (spatial) description and imagination in ancient Jewish texts and how they participate in Greco-Roman literary and rhetorical traditions.
Curriculum Vitae
Fellowships and Grants
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2021-2025 Martin Buber Society of Fellows, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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2020-2021 Tel Aviv University President Postdoctoral Scholarship
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2018-2020 VATAT Postdoctoral Fellowship for Outstanding Women in Science
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2015-2018 Israel Democracy Institute, “Judaism and Human Rights”
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2010-2015 Doctoral Fellowship, School for Jewish Studies, Tel Aviv University
Select Prizes
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2014 Yaniv Foundation Prize in Jewish History and Philosophy
Education
2020-2021 Postdoctoral fellow, School of Jewish Studies, Tel Aviv University\
2018-2021 Junior Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of the Bible, Oriel College and postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford
2018-2020 Visiting Scholar, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies
2011-2018 PhD, Tel Aviv University, School of Jewish Studies. Dissertation title: Paul’s Interpretation of Scripture and the (pre-)History of Midrash
2006-2010 MA, Tel Aviv University, Talmud and Rabbinic Literature. Thesis title: ‘His Wife is Like his Body’: An Interpretation of a Talmudic Idiom. (Summa cum laude).
2004-2006 BA, Tel Aviv University, Comparative Literature and Jewish Philosophy. (Summa cum laude).
Selected Publications
Books
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Written For Us: Paul’s Interpretation of Scripture and the History of Midrash (Forthcoming, 2022)
Edited books
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Protestant Bible Scholarship: Antisemitism, Philosemitism, and Anti-Judaism, Edited by Hindy Najman, Paula Fredriksen, René Bloch, Yael Fisch, Arjen Bakker (Forthcoming, 2021).
Articles
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“The Origins of Oral Torah: A New Pauline Perspective,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 51 (2020), 43-66.
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“‘Midrash-Pesher’: A Shared Technique of Interpretation in Qumran, Paul, and the Tannaim,” Revue de Qumrân 32 (2020), 213-233.
Chapters in Peer Reviewed Books
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“The Legend of the Septuagint,” in Tal Ilan and Vered Noam, with Daphne Baratz, Meir Ben Shachar and Yael Fisch, Josephus and the Rabbis: The Lost Legends of the Second Temple (Vol. 1), (Hebrew; Yad Ben-Zvi, 2017), 145-167.
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“Bones in the Temple,” in Tal Ilan and Vered Noam, with Daphne Baratz, Meir Ben Shachar and Yael Fisch, Josephus and the Rabbis: The Lost Legends of the Second Temple (Vol. 1), (Hebrew; Yad Ben-Zvi, 2017), 485-492.
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“The Corruption of the High-Priests,” in Tal Ilan and Vered Noam, with Daphne Baratz, Meir Ben Shachar and Yael Fisch, Josephus and the Rabbis: The Lost Legends of the Second Temple (Vol. 1), (Hebrew; Yad Ben-Zvi, 2017), 526-543.
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“The Census in the time of Cestius Gallus/King Agrippa,” in Tal Ilan and Vered Noam, with Daphne Baratz, Meir Ben Shachar and Yael Fisch, Josephus and the Rabbis: The Tales about the Destruction of the Temple (Vol. 2), (Hebrew; Yad Ben-Zvi, 2017), 812-821.
Selected Presentations
10/2021 “Forgetting the Temple: Architectural Revision of the Jerusalem Temple in Mishnah Middot”, in Architexture: Textual Representation and Practices of Sacred Spaces in the Ancient World, Martin Luther University at Halle, Germany.
06/2021 With Dr. Assaf Tamari, (Polonsky, Van Leer), “The problem of Myth for the Jews: On ‘Myth’ as an Analytical Category in the ‘Wissenschaft des Judentums’ and Beyond.” Force of Myth: Authority, Illusion, and Critique in Modern Imaginaries, Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.
03/2021 With Dr. Hallel Baitner (Oxford), “Thirteen Prostrations: Ritual as Marker of Sacred Space”, in Reimaging the Temple (Online) Workshop at Oriel College, Oxford.
11/2020 “Paul and the Rabbis”, New Testament Research Seminar, University of Aberdeen.
07/2020 “Making Memory: Mishnah Middot and its Fashioning of the Temple,” Special Session Spotlight on Emerging Talent, British Association of Jewish Studies. Online Event.
02/2020 “Reading and Unveiling: Between Paul and the Rabbis,” New Testament Research Seminar, University of Oxford.
12/2019 “The Pleasure of the Text: Midrash and Playfulness,” Hermeneutic Interventions Workshop, University of Oxford.
11/2019 “Veiled and Unveiled Hermeneutics: 2 Cor 3 and Rabbinic Midrash,” Centre for the Study of Christian Origins, Convener: Prof. Matthew Novenson. Respondent: Prof. Timothy Lim, University of Edinburgh.
07/2019 “Rethinking the List of Changes: Scriptural Pluriformity and the Rabbinic Legend of the Septuagint,” British Association of Jewish Studies Annual Meeting, University of Oxford.
06/2019 “Midrash-Pesher in Qumran, Paul, and the Tannaim,” 70 Years of Dead Sea Scrolls Workshop, University of Oxford.
06/2019 with Dr. Assaf Tamari (Polonksy Academy, Van Leer Institute), “The Absence and Presence of ‘Myth’ as an Analytical Category in the Wissenschaft des Judentums and Beyond,” Grey Areas: Two Centuries of Wissenschaft des Judentums, Heidelberg Hochschule.
05/2019 “What is Midrash?” Early Biblical Interpretation Seminar, Convened by Prof. Hindy Najman, University of Oxford.
2/2019 “On Breastfeeding: Mythological Motherhood in Ancient Jewish Texts,” David Patterson Lecture, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford
1/2019 “Allegory and the Formation of Genealogy: between Pauline and Rabbinic Literature,” Medieval Church and Culture Research Seminar, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford
12/2018 “Did Paul have a Notion of Oral Torah?”, Departmental Seminar, School of Jewish Studies, Tel Aviv University
06/2018 “Paul’s Interpretation of Scripture and Rabbinic Midrash: Beyond Genealogy,” Converso Paulinisms and Other Judeo-Christian Pauline Moments, Mandel-Scholion, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
11/2017 “Prophecy and Writing,” Theology and Rationality Workshop on “prophecy,” Goethe University Frankfurt.
08/2017 “Hagar and Sarah in Galatians 4: Allegory, Midrash, Politics”, the 17th World Congress in Jewish Studies, Jerusalem.
03/2017 “The meaning of ‘the seed of Abraham’: Interpretation and Genealogy in ancient Judaism,” Jewish Political Thought Workshop, The Polonsky Academy at the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.
12/2016 “Naming the Text: ‘Torah’ and ‘Nomos’,” The Translation of Sacred Texts: Complicating the Universal, Organized by Prof. Barbara Cassin (CNRS, Paris), held in Mucem, Marseille.
12/2016 “Romans 10:5-13 and Midrash Pesher, a Case Study in the History of Hermeneutics” Martin-Buber-Chair Colloquium, Goethe University Frankfurt.