To write history is so difficult that most historians are forced to make concessions to the technique of legend.

The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us—they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.

The Bible’s claim to truth is not only far more urgent than Homer’s, it is tyrannical—it excludes all other claims.

The concept of God held by the Jews is less a cause than a symptom of their manner of comprehending and representing things.

Christianity shatters the classical balance between high and low styles, just as Jesus’ life destroys the separation between the sublime and the everyday.