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.

It would be hard to find a more influential book of Biblical studies than his Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic [1973].

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 [with Frank Moore Cross] have the same fervor, the same passion when in front of us is a page, a unique page - every page is unique - of the Pentateuch.

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.

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

Both of you [Elie Wiesel and Frank Moore Cross] are giants, dare I say nephilim [giants; see Genesis 6:4; Numbers 13:33], in your world.