"No other book in the western tradition has been subject to such extensive interpretation, or to interpretation based on such incompatible principles as, for example, on the one hand, the principles of higher criticism which treat the Bible as a secular document, and, on the other hand, the principles of exegesis peculiar to a text considered to be the sacred and revealed word of God... No matter what the topic under which the Bible is cited [in the Syntopicon], the reader is always left quite free to decide that issue for himself. He can always read a biblical passage either as a portion of divine revelation, or as human writing no different from other human literature."