BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings
the appropr iate place. S o much for the Five B o oks of Mo s e s ; it is t i me now
to examin e the othe r b o oks.
[7] For s i milar rea s ons , the B o ok of Jo shua als o c an b e show n not to
have b e e n w r itte n by Jo shua. 18 It is another p e rs on who te st i¢e s that
Jo shua’s fame had spread throughout the e ar th (s e e 6 .27), that he o mitte d
non e of the c o mma ndme n ts of Mo s e s (s e e the la st ve rs e of ch. 8 and ch.
11.15), that he g rew old, that he su mm on e d the m all to an a s s e mbly, 19
and ¢nally that he di e d. 20 The n to o s o me thing s are told that happ e n e d
afte r his de ath, for example , that afte r his de ath the Is raelite s worshipp e d
Go d a s long a s the old me n who kn ew hi m re maine d alive. 21 It is s aid at
16.10 that Ephrai m and Mana s s eh ‘did not dr ive out the C ana anite that
dwelt in Ge z e r, but’ (it adds) ‘the C ana anite ha s dwelt in the midst of
Ephraim to this day and has paid them tribute’. This is exactly what is
s aid in the b o ok of Judge s , ch. 1, and the expre s s ion ‘to this day’ shows
that the writer was speaking of something from the past. Similar is the
text in the last verse of chapter 15 about the sons of Judah, as well as the
story of Caleb which begins at verse 13 of the same chapter.The incident
related at ch. 22.10 ¡. about the two tribes and the half tribe that built 125
the altar beyond Jordan also seems to have occurred after Joshua’s death:
there is no mention of him in the whole account, and it is the people
alone who debate the question of war, send out envoys, await a response
and make the ¢nal decision for war. Finally, it plainly follows from 10.14
that this book was composed many generations after Joshua; for it says:
‘there has been no day like that day either before or afterwards, on which
God’ (so) ‘hearkened to any man’, etc. If Joshua ever wrote a book, it was
surely the one which is cited in this same narrative at 10.13. 22
[8] No sensible person, I believe, is persuaded that the Book of Judges
was composed by the Judges themselves. For the summary of this whole
history given in chapter 2 clearly proves that it was written entirely by one
narrator alone. Moreover, it was undoubtedly written after the kings
assumed the government, since its author often reminds us that ‘in those
days’ there was no king in Israel.
18 Autographa.
19 Joshua 23.24.
20 Joshua 24.29.
21 Joshua 24.31.
22 Joshua 10.13: ‘Is this not written in the Book of Jashar’ (how the sun stood still in heaven).
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