Furthermore, I think there was, in fact, a celebration of Passover in the era of the Judges in which the epic was recited in the context of the central sanctuary. That tradition was displaced by the Feast of Enthronement beginning in the Solomonic era.

The Bible is one, Old and New, in my particular tradition.

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

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.

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

If one attempts to achieve deity or to have the holy, he is thrown back; he is refused. His language is taken from him. He can no longer even communicate. That's the Tower of Babel.

My father's religious life was not Biblically centered. He was a saintly man, whom I could never emulate, so I went into scholarship rather than into the kind of pastoral activity that he pursued.