Frank Moore Cross Quotes

I have referred to [Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] on occasion, but I doubt that you will find his name in any of my indices. In my view, he is important in the history of interpretation; and that is a subject I have not approached directly.

I try to look at the texts and say: Is there a way that I can find history in the texts and separate it from what may be the mythological elements, and I don’t find any rules for that.

In fact, we’re both [with Elie Wiesel] engaged with the text. We search for different things, we find different things. There is a side of what he does that I’d like to do, a bit more privately. I’m not sure he is as interested in history, as I am.

I have a concordance to the Talmud at home, which I have to use.

It fascinates me to analyze these things and, yes, to see layers in the texts and the building up of Biblical literature. I think this provides insights that one simply does not get by the direct approach.

[Sacrifice of Isaac] is a major theme of the so-called Elohist [one authorial strand in the Pentateuch]. It is marked by all of his linguistic characteristics, and so on. We cannot determine what is historical and what isn’t. As literary critics, we would understand the importance of this for understanding life, destiny. But the historical question must be left with a question mark.

We want to live in ambiguity. This is the human condition.

Israel defined its God and its relation to that God in existential, relational terms. They did not, until quite late, approach the question of one God in an abstract philosophical way.

When you come to the New Testament you can’t even swing a cat without hitting three demons and two spirits. And magic becomes something that is everywhere. In the Hebrew Bible this sort of thing doesn’t go on.

I would not speak of Judaism as a Talmudic or Rabbinic religion. It’s a Biblical religion.

If one attempts to achieve deity or to have the holy, he is thrown back; he is refused. His language is taken from him. He can no longer even communicate. That’s the Tower of Babel.

My own interest is far more in the Hebrew Bible. My religion is more personally related to the Hebrew Bible than it is to the New Testament.