Frank Moore Cross Quotes

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• 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

  Animal, Garden, Eden

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Taken, Tower Of Babel, Towers

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Biblical, Thinking, Building Up

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Hebrew, New Testament, Interest

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  7 Copy quote

• Furthermore, I think there was, in fact, a celebration of Passover in the era of the Judges in which the epic was recited in the context of the central sanctuary. That tradition was displaced by the Feast of Enthronement beginning in the Solomonic era.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Epic, Thinking, Judging

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• [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.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Sacrifice, Destiny, Understanding

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Philosophical, Israel, Way

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Historical, Trying, Innocence

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• That is to say, the inspiration, the interpretive richness of the text is what Elie [Wiesel] does publicly, and his interest in history is his private reserve; he knows that he is not an expert in dissecting the text the way Frank [Moore Cross] does.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Inspiration, Experts, Doe

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, May, Want

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

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

  Frank Moore Cross

  Want, Human Condition, Ambiguity

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Views, Names, Doubt

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  7 Copy quote

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

  Frank Moore Cross

  Biblical, Speak, Judaism

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• I find it exciting to get any historical material from the ground. As you know, I love to put ancient Israel and its literature into their ancient contexts. And to rebuild - that is, to me, a very exciting historical task.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Israel, Historical, Tasks

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

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

  Frank Moore Cross

  World, Hebrew, Hebrew Bible

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

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

  Frank Moore Cross

  Law, Lost, Form

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Trying, Want, Holy

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

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

  Frank Moore Cross

  Passionate, Speak, Crosses

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• I guess what this is reflecting is my own search for answers that I can't find. Frank [Moore Cross] and I have examined a lot of archaeological materials in the hope of finding out.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Answers, Crosses, Frank

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Giving, May, Archaeology

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  8 Copy quote

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

  Frank Moore Cross

  Hebrew, Interpretation, Judaism

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• [The story of Adam and Eve] it's poetry. One must interpret it as poetry. The first 11 chapters of Genesis [the Primeval History] are absolutely remarkable.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Stories, Firsts, Adam

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

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

  Frank Moore Cross

  Lost, Written

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

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

  Frank Moore Cross

  Interpretation, Fascinating

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

• Certainly professionally, yes [I was interested more in history]. And literary criticism, the structure of poetry. But it is primarily as a historian that I work, although text criticism and literary criticism are very much a part of my interests.

  Frank Moore Cross

  Criticism, Structure, Interest

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

  4 Copy quote

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