Frank Moore Cross

I grew up in a household in which the Bible played very little role.

— Frank Moore Cross

What is public for you, Elie [Wiesel], is private for Frank [Moore Cross], and the reverse.

— Frank Moore Cross

Elie [Wiesel], when you ask, "Why do I want to know," I'm trying to grab the holy. And I'm getting thrown back.

— Frank Moore Cross

The text says Deuteronomy was lost, but you say it was written then.

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross

The Bible is one, Old and New, in my particular tradition.

— Frank Moore Cross

You have miracles [in the Hebrew Bible], yes, but they're not the work, normally, of demons.

— Frank Moore Cross

There are surely many legitimate approaches to Biblical literature, and I think that it depends very much on one's experience and temperament…

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross

My father's religious life was not Biblically centered. He was a saintly man, whom I could never emulate, so I went into…

— Frank Moore Cross

Frank [Moore Cross], publicly dissects the text but he has a private, passionate relationship to the text that he doesn't often speak…

— Frank Moore Cross

It has been said that in order to pursue the history of Biblical interpretation, you must include the whole philosophy of the…

— Frank Moore Cross

I try to look at the texts and say: Is there a way that I can find history in the texts and…

— Frank Moore Cross

I guess what this is reflecting is my own search for answers that I can't find. Frank [Moore Cross] and I have…

— Frank Moore Cross

My father was a Social Gospel, far-left liberal, and to some degree a mystic. But we did not have Bible readings; we…

— Frank Moore Cross

I do think that the Josianic return to the archaic form of the Passover is appropriate and, indeed, historical. Josiah does go…

— Frank Moore Cross

I have referred to [Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] on occasion, but I doubt that you will find his name in any of…

— Frank Moore Cross

In fact, we're both [with Elie Wiesel] engaged with the text. We search for different things, we find different things. There is…

— Frank Moore Cross

Certainly professionally, yes [I was interested more in history]. And literary criticism, the structure of poetry. But it is primarily as a…

— Frank Moore Cross

[Sacrifice of Isaac] is a major theme of the so-called Elohist [one authorial strand in the Pentateuch]. It is marked by all…

— Frank Moore Cross

That is to say, the inspiration, the interpretive richness of the text is what Elie [Wiesel] does publicly, and his interest in…

— Frank Moore Cross

If I had to choose between the two ways of approaching the deity, I should prefer the existential relational way, to the…

— Frank Moore Cross

Furthermore, I think there was, in fact, a celebration of Passover in the era of the Judges in which the epic was…

— Frank Moore Cross

The history of interpretation [of the Bible] is fascinating; but that is something else.

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross

I became intimately acquainted with the Bible only as a theological student.

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross

I find it exciting to get any historical material from the ground. As you know, I love to put ancient Israel and…

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross

If I ever write a book on "How True Is the Bible?" I'll have to start out by saying that archaeology is…

— Frank Moore Cross

The Hebrew Bible defines Judaism. It's certainly true that the Talmudic interpretations become authoritative and normative, but they are interpretations of the…

— Frank Moore Cross

When you come to the New Testament you can't even swing a cat without hitting three demons and two spirits. And magic…

— Frank Moore Cross

If one attempts to achieve deity or to have the holy, he is thrown back; he is refused. His language is taken…

— Frank Moore Cross

[The story of Adam and Eve] it's poetry. One must interpret it as poetry. The first 11 chapters of Genesis [the Primeval…

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross

Israel defined its God and its relation to that God in existential, relational terms. They did not, until quite late, approach the…

— Frank Moore Cross

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

— Frank Moore Cross