[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.

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.

Just because you cannot see it now, does not mean it is not there or not possible. See yourself succeeding and own that vision through all your planning and hard work.

It's amazing, the mentality shift that occurs in pregnancy. All of a sudden you want to be good to yourself.

Each time I get off a plane in Hollywood, I don't think I'm pretty enough.

I like to sleep about four or five really solid hours at night, and then sometimes take a nap in the afternoon or early evening after dinner. I love naps.

Social media's greatest assets - anonymity, 'virality,' interconnectedness - are also its main weaknesses.

I became very aware of how important it is to connect with children - possibly for the children, if they're in the mood for that - but certainly for the adults.

I think I'm just trying to be myself and write songs that are honest. That's what I hear in artist's that I like.

Prayer is never just an emergency flare or desperate anxious gamble. God's attention is not based on our performance but parental love.

Can not the One who gives life to dead land, give life to dead hearts?