We want to live in ambiguity. This is the human condition.

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

I sense that what you two [Elie Wiesel and Frank Moore Cross] share is that you each have a public relationship to the Biblical text and a somewhat private relationship to the Biblical text.

It has been said that in order to pursue the history of Biblical interpretation, you must include the whole philosophy of the West, which informs it at every stage.

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

We are thrown back on the text, for the most part. Archaeology can give us background. It doesn't either confirm or disprove the Bible, but it may illuminate it.

With the Hebrew Bible, you're living in an austere world.