BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

On the interpretation of Scripture
pass this over for the present, and proceed to make some further remarks
about the di⁄culties and limitations of this the true method of interpreting
Scripture.
[15] A further problem with this method is that it requires a history of
the vicissitudes of all the biblical books, and most of this is unknown to us.
For either we have no knowledge whatever of the authors, or (if you prefer)
the compilers, of many of the books ^ or else we are uncertain about them,
as Iwill demonstrate fully in the next chapters. Also, we do not know under
what circumstances these books whose compilers are unknown were
composed or when. Nor do we know into whose hands all these books
subsequently came, or in whose copies so many variant readings occur, nor
whether there may not have been many additional readings in others. I
touched upon the need to know all this at one point but purposely omitted
a few things which we should deal with now. If we read any book that contains
incredible or incomprehensible things, or is written in very obscure
language, and if we do not know its author or when and under what circumstances
he wrote it, our e¡orts to get at its true sense will be fruitless.
For if all this is unknown, we cannot ascertain what the author intended or
might have intended. When, on the other hand, all these things are adequately
known, we determine our thoughts so as not to make prejudicial
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judgments or attribute to the author, or person on whose behalf he wrote,
either more or less than is correct, or take anything else into consideration
but what the author could have had in mind, or what the period and context
demanded.
This I thinkwill be clear to everyone. It frequently happens that we read
very similar stories in di¡erent books, about which we make quite contrasting
judgments, depending on the di¡erent views we have of the writers.
I remember once reading in a certain book that a manwhose name was
Orlando Furioso 6 was wont to drive a winged monster through the air and
£y over any regions he wished, single-handedly killing large numbers of
men and giants, and other fantasies of this kind, which are totally incomprehensible
to our intellect. I have read a similar story in Ovid about
Perseus, 7 and another in the books of Judges and Kings 8 about Samson
(who alone and unarmed killed a thousand men) and Elijah, 9 who £ew
6 Ariosto, Orlando Furioso 10.66.
9 2 Kings 2.11.
7 Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.600¡.
8 Judges 15.9^16.
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