It has been said that in order to pursue the history of Biblical interpretation, you must include the whole philosophy of the West, which informs it at every stage.

We are thrown back on the text, for the most part. Archaeology can give us background. It doesn't either confirm or disprove the Bible, but it may illuminate it.

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.

The Garden of Eden presents the same story: If you want to make yourself gods, you'll find you're akin to the animals.

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.

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.

I prefer to have all of this apparatus - historical, literary, critical - and then, beyond initial innocence and naiveté, to try to achieve a new innocence, a new naiveté.

I think we may very well, in many areas, get likelihood, but not certitude. We don't want certitude anyway, do we?

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

There was certainly an old law code which stands behind the earliest form of Deuteronomy. Presumably that is what was lost.

With the Hebrew Bible, you're living in an austere world.

If you live in a dirty big city, it means that you surely need a pastoral life to make yourself clean!

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.

It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for.

Information gently but relentlessly drizzles down on us in an invisible, impalpable electric rain.

O be wise, what can I say more?

I live at Gap Kids; I think they have the cutest stuff. I barely buy anything for myself, but my daughter has quite the collection.

Whereas painting is a more rarefied art form, with a limited audience, I recognized film as this extraordinary social tool that could reach tremendous numbers of people.

When you treat people well, those same people might not treat you the same way. But if you pay attention, you'll notice that Allah has sent OTHER people who treat you even better.

Governments are based on power, companies are based on goodwill, which allows them to invest in the future.

When you come to church, when you worship Him, you're not doing it for God really. You're doing it for yourself, because that's what makes God happy. Amen?