I've been on a faculty in a university, and I felt it was incumbent on me to deal with the Bible not as something I was attempting to convert people to, or to have them enter into my religious experience, but rather as an academic and scientific discipline.

The Bible is a book that has shaped my life, my beliefs, my ethics, my moral concerns, my religious outlook. This is not something, however, that I have taught or written about. This has been, if you wish, a private aspect.

Frank Moore Cross is also a leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, which he's been since they were discovered more than 50 years ago. He's just completing an edition of one of the most significant scrolls for Biblical studies, the Book of Samuel from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

We differ [with Frank Moore Cross] simply because of our differing backgrounds.

I know that the Bible has been a central influence in [Elie Wiesel and Frank Moore Cross] lives - but in a very different way. In truth, you inhabit very different Biblical worlds.

To treat the history of Israel as I would treat the history of England or Russia or China; that is, an attempt at a scientific, historical approach.I am particularly fascinated with origins.

Elie Wiesel has for years served as the moral compass of the civilized world. For many of us, including me, he has defined the Holocaust.