Daniel Fisher on the Materials of Lived Biblical Interpretation

Daniel Fisher (Magnes Graduate Fellow and PhD Candidate, Near Eastern Studies) specializes in the Hebrew Bible and its early reception history. At the Magnes, Daniel is working with Dr. Francesco Spagnolo to curate Biblical Lives, an exhibition to open in fall 2015 highlighting materials from the collection that empowered Jews across history to engage with the Bible — to live with the sacred text and to model their lives on its vision for Israel.

During this session of the Working Group, Daniel will offer a preview of the exhibition and the questions it explores through five objects, illustrating the ways Jews lead biblical lives — cultivating biblical minds and bodies, living on biblical time, and imagining and creating biblical spaces (homes, places of worship, nation states, etc.):

• A 17th century Italian circumcision cup
• An olive wood souvenir desk calendar from Jerusalem
• A miniature household torah ark, complete with miniature torah
• “Jonah and the Whale in Haifa Port” (Print, Eugene Abeshaus)
• The Joseph Bowl, a bronze basin from India depicting the story of Joseph