Hershel Shanks Quotes

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.

At McCormick Theological Seminary I had to take Hebrew, so I began to read prophetic poetry, and suddenly it became the life I wanted to spend.

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.

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.

As long as I’m giving a little hype, I can’t resist saying that Elie [Wiesel] has also written a number of pieces for Bible Review, for which I serve as editor.

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

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.

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

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.

I don’t think there is any other professional Bible scholar who is more respected and honored [like Frank Moore Cross].

I think that there are these two very different sides to my relation to the Bible: one, my professional life; the other, a more private concern, interest and fascination with the Bible.

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.