"What I do try to show in the course is how much the early interpreters really created the whole image that the Bible has in Judaism and Christianity."

While he does not believe modern Biblical scholars will ever stand on common ground with their ancient counterparts, Kugel sees a reason to pursue both lines of Scriptural inquiry.

"I know there are people who feel that modern Biblical scholarship and traditional approaches to the Bible can be reconciled--that there's a great coming together just over the horizon," Kugel says.

"I just don't think that," he adds.

Kugel says he has a "hunch," however, that scholars' efforts to resolve the conflicts between modern and ancient views will lead to increased appreciation for "the whole world of these ancient interpreters."

"Finally, I think, modern scholarship is going to have to, grudgingly, give to these ancient interpreters the credit that they deserve," Kugel says.

The professor, who grew up in New York City and attended Yale University, says he first encountered modern Biblical scholarship in college.

As an undergraduate, however, he studied not the Bible but modern poetry. Before coming to Harvard to earn his master's degree, Kugel embarked on a brief journalism career.

"The most dignified place I worked at was Harper's Magazine," Kugel said. "I was poetry editor there."

Though his interests were primarily literary at this point in his career, being exposed to modern approaches to the Bible at Yale had piqued Kugel's curiosity.

"I knew there were all these people out there--a lot of them didn't even know the Bible nearly as well as I did--who seemed to have this other knowledge... [about] how the texts had been composed," Kugel says.

"I wanted to know all that stuff," he says. "I was frightened by it, but I was also terribly attracted."

And so, Kugel, explains, "The [Core] course is really in some ways the story of my life."

He admits dealing with the modern scholarship is a "bit of a struggle."

"I think I still have the sensibilities of someone who comes from a [traditional] background," Kugel says, "but I also find modern Biblical scholarship quite impressive."