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Horst Steinke
212
and verbs are unclear; idioms, figures of speech, linguistic usage
in general are highly obscure, to the point of incomprehensibility;
the inherent characteristics of the Hebrew language (its linguis-
tics) make it impossible to determine the «true meaning», due to
its irregular pronunciation, ambiguities of conjunctions, adverbs,
verbs, lack of alphabetic vowels, lack of punctuation, and ques-
tionable vowel pointing. As these individual aspects of Hebrew
are discussed, each is seen as further reason to recognize that
there are «so many ambiguities as to render it impossible to de-
vise a method that can teach us with certainty how to discover
the true meaning of all Scriptural passages»
473
. How is one then
to reconcile this (critical) view of the Hebrew language with Spi-
noza’s own project of a Hebrew grammar, published as
Compen-
dium Grammatices hebraeae Lingue
474
? As pointed out by Moreau,
Spinoza’s abiding interest in the Hebrew language can be under-
stood as integrated into his metaphysics
475
. Spinoza’s discussion
of Hebrew grammatical characteristics, such as the passive, the
masculine/feminine genders, variable prepositions, adverbs, lack
of noun inflections, or verb forms, takes place from the higher
perspective of the otherwise vast space of logical necessities,
within which, then, Hebrew (as well as Latin, to which it is com-
pared) only realizes a small subset of possibilities. Hebrew, like
all languages, belongs to the domain of experience, not of es-
sences
476
, which is one of the key conclusions of the
Compendium;
in it we therefore have more a work of philosophical reflection
than a standard reference grammar
477
or a work on linguistics
strictu sensu
478
.
Spinoza next turns to the issue of «the history of all the bibli-
cal books», including knowledge of the authors, the historical
background, the transmission of the writings, and the multiple
text versions, referring explicitly to the earlier discussion
479
.
However, with a rhetorical technique resembling
amplification
or
accumulation
480
, rather than engaging with the contemporary state
of the art or scholarship
481
, he seems to place one methodologi-