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.

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 have a text before us, an ancient text, a living text, and we try to enter it, not only to decipher it, but to penetrate it, to become part of it, similar to the way every student becomes part of a teacher's texture. That's how I see our [with Frank Moore Cross] two differing approaches.

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, Elie Wiesel is also the author of more than 40 books. As relevant as anything to today's discussion are the insights into the Biblical texts that are contained in his lectures and books. They include Messengers of God [1976], Five Biblical Portraits [1978] and his just-published Wise Men and Their Tales - Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic and Hasidic Masters.

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.

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

[My father was ] Presbyterian [minister]. But I did not take the Bible seriously until I was forced to take Hebrew at McCormick Theological Seminary.