I prefer to have all of this apparatus - historical, literary, critical - and then, beyond initial innocence and naiveté, to try to achieve a new innocence, a new naiveté.

The Garden of Eden presents the same story: If you want to make yourself gods, you'll find you're akin to the animals.

Happily, I come out of a Calvinist tradition in which the Hebrew Bible carries as much authority as the New Testament. No different weight is given to one or the other.

The text says Deuteronomy was lost, but you say it was written then.

The Hebrew Bible defines Judaism. It's certainly true that the Talmudic interpretations become authoritative and normative, but they are interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. So that is always there.

Elie [Wiesel], when you ask, "Why do I want to know," I'm trying to grab the holy. And I'm getting thrown back.

I have referred to [Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] on occasion, but I doubt that you will find his name in any of my indices. In my view, he is important in the history of interpretation; and that is a subject I have not approached directly.