Abstract
The biblical scholarship Spinoza deploys in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670) stands in a long tradition of humanist philology. The radical thrust of the book lay not so much in the techniques as in the conclusions which Spinoza, spurred by his philosophical agenda, allowed himself to draw from the results. His historical contextualization of the biblical Sitz im Leben resembled what humanist philologists like Joseph Scaliger had done long before: a reconstruction of the circumstances in which a text was produced, with an eye to time, space, and culture. The central chapters in the Tractatus also show that Spinoza was not the most outstanding representative of this scholarly tradition.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Scriptural Authority and Biblical Criticism in the Dutch Golden Age |
Subtitle of host publication | God's Word Questioned |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 177-196 |
Number of pages | 20 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780198806837 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 23 2017 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Arts and Humanities
Keywords
- Biblical criticism
- Historical contextualization
- Humanist predecessors
- Rabbinic sources
- Spinoza