I find myself a little uncomfortable in the New Testament environment. And this is also true of what I would call late Judaism, the Judaism of the Second Temple and later.

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.

Solve your problems or your problems solve you.

I have worked all my life wanted to work all my life needed to work all my life.

It's sad that we have become so accustomed to bad service that we're shocked when we get good service.

There is no algorithm for creativity.

Sometimes you have to go somewhere else to appreciate what we have here.

The successful conduct of an industrial enterprise requires two quite distinct qualifications: fidelity and zeal.

Pastors spend a good bit of time helping people with their sin. Who helps them with their sin?

You want to provide for your family, of course, but you also want them to come along on the journey with you. I haven't achieved all I want to with my life, so I need to continue to push myself.

I love the intimacy of small venues, I really do, I like that look that people have that they feel like they're special and they can hear and they can see the band as well.

Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone.