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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I do think that the Josianic return to the archaic form of the Passover is appropriate and, indeed, historical. Josiah does go back to a different, earlier tradition, the time of a central sanctuary in which the law code was read. But then there were accretions to the Book of Deuteronomy.