“A boat against the current.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s phrase aptly applies to Frank Moore Cross, the recently retired Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University. In an age of ever increasing academic specialization, Cross remains a resolute generalist. Many a scholar would be content to master just one of Cross’s numerous fields of expertise: biblical history, the decipherment and dating of ancient texts, history of religion, the development of the biblical canon, ancient languages and cultures, the development of the alphabet, the Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology on both land and sea, historical geography—the list could […]