BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
anything like that. Others who have learnt to philosophize more accurately
and recognize that the earth moves and the sun is at rest, or does not move
around the earth, make great e¡orts to derive this from this passage even
though it obviously will not permit such a reading. I am really astonished at
them. Are we obliged, I ask, to believe that Joshua, a soldier, was an expert
in astronomy and that a miracle could not be revealed to him, or that the
light of the sun could not be above the horizon longer than usual, without
Joshua understanding the cause of it Both explanations seem utterly
ridiculous to me. I prefer to say frankly that Joshua was ignorant of the true
cause of that longer-lasting light. He and all the people with him believed
both that the sun moves in a daily motion around the earth and that on this
day it stood still for some time, and they believed that this was the cause of
the longer-lasting light. They had no idea that as a result of the large
amount of ice which was in the air there at that time (see Joshua 10.11), 6
there was a greater refraction than normal, or something of that kind. But
we will not go into this at the moment.
For Isaiah too 7 the sign of the shadow moving backwards was revealed to
him in a manner suited to his understanding, namely as a backward
movement of the sun, since he too thought that the sun moves and the
earth is at rest. Of parhelia he probably had not even the faintest notion. 8
We may assert this unreservedly. For the sign really might have occurred
and Isaiah might have predicted it to the king, even though he did not
know its true cause.
The same must also be said for Solomon’s building of the Temple, if
indeed that was revealed by God, i.e., that all its measurements were
revealed to Solomon according to his understanding and assumptions. For
as we have no reason to believe Solomon was a mathematician, we are
entitled to assert that he did not know the true ratio between the circumference
of a circle and its diameter, and supposed like most craftsmen
that it was 3 to 1. For if it is permissible to say that we do not understand
the text of 1 Kings7.23, I simply do not know whatwe can understand from
Scripture, since the edi¢ce is merely reported in that passage in a purely
descriptive manner. If one is permitted to claim that Scripture meant
something else here, but for some reason unknown to us it was decided to
6 ‘And as they £ed before Israel, while they were going down the ascent of Beth-Horon, the Lord
threw down great stones from heaven upon them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more
who died because of the hailstones than the men of Israel killed with the sword.’ (Joshua 10.11).
7 Isaiah 38.7^8.
8 i.e., sundogs or mock suns.
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