BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Furtherqueries
illustrate all this here with numerous examples, but I do not want to annoy
the reader with tedious reading. If anyone asks how I know these things,
I reply that they are found in the most ancient writers, i.e., in the Bible,
but later writers did not choose to imitate them, and imitation is the only
reason why in other languages, even in dead languages, obsolete words can
remain still known.
[20] Since I have said that the majority of these marginal notes are
doubtful readings, someone will perhaps ask next why there are never
more than two readings found for each passage Why not sometimes three
or more Again, certain expressions in the Scriptures which are correctly
annotated in the marginal note, are so obviously contrary to grammar, that
it is barely credible scribes could have hesitated or been in doubt which
reading was correct. Here too the reply is readily given. To the ¢rst question,
I answer that there were once more readings than the ones we ¢nd
annotated in our codices. Several readings are noted in theTalmud which
were neglected by the Masoretes, and in many passages they are so manifestly
divergent that the superstitious editor of the Bomberg Bible 22 was
¢nally compelled to admit in his preface that he did not know how to
reconcile them: ‘Here we do not know what answer to give,’ he says,‘except
to repeat what we said earlier’, namely, that ‘it is the habit of theTalmud to
contradict the Masoretes’. Hence there is no justi¢cation for claiming there
have never been more than two readings for each passage.
Even so, I readily concede, in fact believe, that no more than two readings
were found for each passage and for two reasons:
(1) because the reason we o¡ered for the survival ofvariant readings does not
permit more than two: for we showed that, usually, these arose from the similarity
between certain letters.The issue in the end thus nearly always came back to
which of two letters one was to append ^ bet or kaf jod or vav dalet or reshand
so on. These are the most frequently used letters, and therefore it could often 140
occur that both yield a tolerable sense. Equally, the question was often whether
a syllable was long or short, where length is determined by the letters we have
called ‘silent’. Further, not all the annotations concern doubtful readings: as we
said, many were included for the sake of decency, and to explain obsolete and
antiquated words.
22 The standard second edition of the Bomberg Bible was published by Daniel Bomberg at Venice in
1524^5, edited by Jacob ben Hayyim.
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