Author Eva Etzioni-Halevy writes:
Sometimes people ask me to what extent my biblical novels are based directly on the Scripture, and to what extent they are based on the Midrash (later stories that expand on the biblical text) and other later interpreters.
My answer is that my novels are based directly on the Bible, supplemented by my own imagination and identification, on the inspiration I derive from living "on location" in Israel, and the sense that this is how it really was.
As for the Midrash and other extra-biblical sources, I have great respect for them and their authors, great biblical scholars, who helped keep Judaism alive for thousands of yeas. Nevertheless, I did not use them as a basis for my novels. I believe that the biblical characters (including biblical women) are rich, many-sided very human beings, with strengths but also with weaknesses, some of which stem from their sexuality. In many cases, the later interpreters have interpreted away this sensuality and turned the characters into one-dimensional, over-righteous personalities, which they were not meant to be originally. To my mind, this is a shame. The Bible is good enough as it is, and none of its aspects need to be "interpreted away". Hence I based my novels directly on the Bible, as it has been written, not as it has been reinterpreted.
