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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

We differ [with Frank Moore Cross] simply because of our differing backgrounds.

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.

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.

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