Jewish Scripture Quotes

Since I invoke Torah so often, let me state that I don't personally believe in the God it postulates ... I am not religious, nor were the majority of the early builders of Israel believers. Yet their passion for this land stemmed from the Book of Books ... [The Bible is] the single most important book in my life.

The Jews invented a portable religion in the shape of the Bible, the Torah, and eventually the Talmud, and with other portable forms of writing. So it's now possible to carry the religion, that is embedded in that writing, away from the ruins of political and military power.

And you can't make a mistake when you are reading the Torah, so you have men standing around who will correct you if you are reading it incorrectly.

In Jewish tradition the Talmud is said to have been given on Sinai.

Judaism is in a sense a Rabbinic, Talmudic religion, rather than a Biblical religion.

[The Psalms are] a Little Bible, wherein everything contained in the entire Bible is beautifully and briefly comprehended.

I am also very excited by the way in which we can see Paul wrestling not only with his Jewish world and its scriptures but also, by clear implication, with philosophical and political issues that were 'out there' at the time. The thing is that for Paul this is all part of the same larger, whole vision of God and God's purposes. Watching how everything comes together is an intellectual treat of the first order - as well as a spiritual and practical challenge to me personally and to the church.

[ Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] was the greatest commentator [of the Bible] we ever had.

With us [Jews] it is not open to everybody to write the records …. The prophets alone had the privilege obtaining the knowledge of the most remote and ancient history through the inspiration which they owed to God….We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books conflicting with one another.

We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.

The Bible is interpreted by the Talmud. Except, in Rabbinic tradition, a Talmudic law has the weight of the Biblical law. Sometimes we say in a prayer, "Blessed are Thou, O God, who has ordered us and commended us," to do something. But you don't find that "something" in the Bible; you find it in the Talmud. So Talmudic law becomes as important as Biblical law.

Jews seek to cleave to the will of God as set forth in the Bible and, particularly, the Pentateuch, with its rabbinic commentaries, the Mishnah and Talmud.

I pity the Jews trying to get through life with only half a Bible. That's like trying to get from here to San Francisco with a road map that stops at Dubuque, Iowa.

I study Torah all the time.