Michael Stone was born in England in 1938. His family moved to Australia, where he received his schooling, up to the completion of his BA (Hons.) degree in 1960. After a year's study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he went to Harvard, where he was awarded the degree of Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. In 1985 he was awarded the earned, senior doctoral degree, D.Litt., by the University of Melbourne, and in 2004 was awarded and honorary Doctor of Human Letters degree by Hebrew Union College. He was appointed to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1966 and, moving up the academic ladder, eventually became Professor of Armenian Studies and Gail Levin de Nur Professor of Religious Studies in 1980.

Stone's academic activities have been devoted to two different disciplines, Armenian Studies and Jewish literature and thought in the period of the Second Temple. His research and publication has been divided more or less equally between these two fields.

In the field of Armenian Studies, Stone's work has focused around three major topics. The first is the study of the Armenian reception, remoulding and transmission of Jewish and Biblical tales and traditions. He has published a number of books and many articles in this field, such as Armenian Apocrypha relating to Patriarchs and Prophets (1982) and The Armenian Version of IV Ezra (1979). Thus, he made a very substantial body of completely unknown texts available to the world of scholarship. His discovery and edition of the Armenian Adam book in 1981 (The Penitence of Adam) initiated a sustained investigation of apocryphal traditions relating to Adam and Eve producing his books Armenian Apocrypha Relating to Adam and Eve (1996), two volumes of concordances of Armenian Adam apocrypha (1996, 2001). His book Adam's Contract with Satan, Indiana University Press, 2002 traces out movements of intellectual and cultural history that have scarce been suspected.

His interest in computer applications to Armenian was pioneering. In 1971 he carried out the first computer-assisted research in Armenian, published in Concordance and Texts of Armenian IV Ezra (1971). He has written books in other fields of Armenian Studies, e.g., the publication and study, with R. Ervine, of The Armenian Version of Epiphanius' On Weights and Measures (2000) and with M.E. Shirinian the edition, translation and commentary on a late antique philosophical treatise, preserved only in Armenian: Pseudo-Zeno: Anonymous Philosophical Treatise (2000)

His second and third interests in Armenian Studies are paleography and the history of the Armenians in Israel. Stone is, without doubt, the most prominent Armenian paleographer in the Western world, and one of two or three leaders of the field worldwide. His study of Armenian graffiti in Nazareth showed them, and some of the Sinai inscriptions he had discovered, to be the oldest written Armenian in the world. He initiated and was Editor-in-Chief of The Album of Armenian Paleography Aarhus University Press, a major publication illustrating the development of Armenian writing.

His work has been widely recognized as is evident from the roles he has played in the academic community, both in Israel and particularly abroad. He is a member of the editorial board of the Revue des études arméniennes [Paris] and a past member of the editorial board of Patmabanasirakan Handes [Historico-Philological Journal: Erevan]) and of Annual of Armenian Linguistics; he was founder and editor for many years of the University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies, and now of the Hebrew University Armenian Studies series. He was founder and President for 20 years, and now Life Honourary President, of the Association Internationale des Etudes Arméniennes, He has been awarded prizes for his researches in Armenian Studies and the major National Prize, the Landau Prize for Contribution to the Humanities.