BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
[9] As for the books of Samuel, there is no reason to tarry long as the
narrative continues far beyond his lifetime. Here, I would merely want to
note that this book too was composed many generations after Samuel. For
in 1 Samuel 9.9 the narrator mentions in parenthesis, ‘In the old days
each man spoke thus in Israel when he went to consult God: ‘‘Come, let
us go to the seer’’; for he who today is called a prophet was in the old
days designated a seer’.
[10] Finally, the books of the Kings, as they themselves make clear, were
excerpted from the books of the ‘Acts of Solomon’ (see 1 Kings 11.41),
from the ‘Chronicles of the Kings of Judah’ (see 14.19, 29) and from the
‘Chronicles of the Kings of Israel’.
[11] We conclude therefore that all the books we have surveyed so far
are derivative works, 23 and the events they describe are recounted as
having happened long before. If we now turn to the unity of theme and
structure of all these books, we shall readily conclude that all were written
by one and the same chronicler, who set out to write the ancient
history of the Jews from their earliest origins down to the ¢rst destruction
of the city. 24 These works are so closely joined to each other that we
clearly discern from this alone that they consist of a single narrative by a
single historian. As soon as he has ¢nished relating the life of Moses, he
passes to the history of Joshua with these words: ‘And it happened, after
Moses the servant of God died, that God said to Joshua’ etc. 25 When this
126 account is completed by the death of Joshua, he commences the history
of the Judges with the same transitional phrase, even the same conjunction:
‘And it happened, after Joshua had died, that the sons of Israel
sought from God’, etc. 26 He annexes the book of Ruth to Judges, like an
appendix,in this manner:‘And it happened in those days inwhich theJudges
were judging that there was a famine in that land’. 27 He joins the ¢rst book
of Samuel to Ruth in the same manner, and after completing that,
proceeds, with his customary transition, to the second book of Samuel.
Before the history of David is ¢nished, he moves into the ¢rst book of
Kings, where he continues his account of the history of David, and ¢nally
joins the second book of Kings to the ¢rstwith the same connecting device.
23 Apographa.
25 Joshua 1.1.
24 The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 bc (2 Kings 25).
26 Judges 1.1.
27 Ruth 1.1.
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