…There is nothing like the Torah for longevity, the definition of a classic. Paul Johnson the great British journalist-historian said it was book with the amazing ability to introduce a character in the shortest number of words and bring him to life on the page. This is the highest form of literary praise. Indeed, yours truly became a believer after reading the Torah and being bowled over by its brilliance in so many ways. Its psychological depth and complexity; its dialogue that out-Shakespeares Shakespeare. I concluded it is too good to be what I was taught that it was at Columbia: the work of man, even a committee of rabbis. Of course the idea that it really was dictated on Mt. Sinai to Moses was never taken seriously. The study of the Bible in universities world-wide is a debunking tradition. The purpose of its high level research is to argue that this verse or that word was pilfered from other, pre-existing cultures. The official line is that the Five Books were written by multiple authors and only after the return from Babylon did a cabal of rabbis stitch all the different versions together and foist it on the gullible Jews as the work of one man, Moses, at Mt. Sinai…