For 35 years, Frank Cross held one of the most prestigious chairs in academia: the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University. I believe that's the third oldest university chair in the country.

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.

In my work, I attempt to deal with the Bible as I would deal with any work of literature.

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

I think that there is a certain schizophrenic aspect to my own relation to the Bible.

I see history in Pentateuch. I see revealed truth in it. I see in it human holiness as much as divine inspiration. Wherever you open it, any page, you know that you are in the presence of something that exists nowhere else.