Quotes about Bible

This is the status of the Bible in modern life: it is a sublime answer, but we do not know the question any more. Unless we recover the question, there is no hope of understanding the Bible.

God does not reveal Himself; he only reveals His way. Judaism does not speak of God's self-revelation, but of the revelation of His teaching for man. The Bible reflects God's revelation of His relation to history, rather than of a revelation of His very Self. Even His will or His wisdom is not completely expressed through the prophets. Prophecy is superior to human wisdom, and God's love is superior to prophecy. This spiritual hierarchy is explicitly stated by the Rabbis.

The words of the Bible are sources of spirit. They carry fire to the soul and evoke our lost dignity out of our hidden origins. Illumined, we suddenly remember, we suddenly recover the strength of endless longing to sense eternity in time.

We must, furthermore, realize that the harsh passages in the Bible are only contained in describing actions which were taken at particular moments and stand in sharp contrast with the compassion, justice and wisdom of the laws that were legislated for all times.

The Bible is to be understood by the spirit that grows with it, wrestles with it, and prays with it.

There are three starting points of contemplation about God; three trails that lead to Him. The first is the way of sensing the presence of God in the world, in things; the second is the way of sensing His presence in the Bible; the third is the way of sensing His presence in sacred deeds.

The Bible is the perpetual motion of the spirit, an ocean of meaning, its waves beating against man's abrupt and steep shortcomings, its echo reaching into the blind alleys of his wrestling with despair.

He who wishes to ponder what is beyond the Bible must first learn to be sensitive to what is within the Bible.

It is not enough to think about the prophets; we must think through the prophets. It is not enough to read the Bible for its wisdom; we must pray the Bible to comprehend its claim.

The way to understand the meaning of torah min hashamayim ("the Bible is from heaven") is to understand the meaning of hashamayim min hatorah ("heaven is from the Bible). Whatever taste of "heaven" we have on earth is in the Bible.

To the Bible the idea of the good is penultimate; it cannot exist without the holy. The holy is the essence, the good is its expression.

The essence of our faith in the sanctity of the Bible is that its words contain that which God wants us to know and to fulfill. How these words were written down is not the fundamental problem.