Masson's anthropomorphism may raise questions; but the story is meant to charm and it does.

Penguin researcher Dee Boersma, however, says that this kind of anthropomorphism is a good thing.

Maimonides, who wrote with bold self-confidence, was not one to shrink from controversy, and many of the debates he provoked stemmed from allegoric explanations of Talmudic texts and Biblical tales, his conception of the proper understanding of anthropomorphism, attempts to rationalize miracles, and his understanding of central theological concepts such as afterlife and bodily resurrection.