Israel defined its God and its relation to that God in existential, relational terms. They did not, until quite late, approach the question of one God in an abstract philosophical way.

Certainly professionally, yes [I was interested more in history]. And literary criticism, the structure of poetry. But it is primarily as a historian that I work, although text criticism and literary criticism are very much a part of my interests.

I would not speak of Judaism as a Talmudic or Rabbinic religion. It's a Biblical religion.

I find myself a little uncomfortable in the New Testament environment. And this is also true of what I would call late Judaism, the Judaism of the Second Temple and later.

That is to say, the inspiration, the interpretive richness of the text is what Elie [Wiesel] does publicly, and his interest in history is his private reserve; he knows that he is not an expert in dissecting the text the way Frank [Moore Cross] does.

[Sacrifice of Isaac] is a major theme of the so-called Elohist [one authorial strand in the Pentateuch]. It is marked by all of his linguistic characteristics, and so on. We cannot determine what is historical and what isn't. As literary critics, we would understand the importance of this for understanding life, destiny. But the historical question must be left with a question mark.

Frank [Moore Cross], publicly dissects the text but he has a private, passionate relationship to the text that he doesn't often speak of publicly.