I guess what this is reflecting is my own search for answers that I can't find. Frank [Moore Cross] and I have examined a lot of archaeological materials in the hope of finding out.

My father was a Social Gospel, far-left liberal, and to some degree a mystic. But we did not have Bible readings; we had prayers.

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.

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.

I have a concordance to the Talmud at home, which I have to use.

The history of interpretation [of the Bible] is fascinating; but that is something else.

There was certainly an old law code which stands behind the earliest form of Deuteronomy. Presumably that is what was lost.