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Horst Steinke

244

sary to identify the single author as someone living after this period. («Hence

it follows that the historian could not have been anyone before Ezra»:

TTP

, p.

113).

We can recognize the intentionality and (inevitable) identification of a sin-

gle «theme», also called «unity of theme» by Spinoza, as reflective of Spinoza’s

conception of the second kind of knowledge; as shown above, to achieve this

kind of knowledge, one needs to find in the confused mass of disparate and

raw data that which is «common» and «universal», in the specific Spinozan

sense. Spinoza’s historical-critical method thus bears the imprint of his epis-

temology. The thematic focus on the theodicy question, possibly, is not unre-

lated to the early modern theodicy debate, for which see Hösle,

God as Reason

,

cit., pp. 50-74, on Spinoza pp. 53-56; published originally in German as

The-

odizeestrategien bei Leibniz

,

Hegel, Jonas

, in

Pensare Dio a Gerusalemme

, ed. by A.

Ales Bello, Rome, Lateran University Press, 2000, pp. 219-243. If so, then

Spinoza’s attribution of this unifying theme could be a projection of this con-

temporary issue onto the biblical corpus. It cannot here be further explored

what kind of nexus may exist

that is, whether it is causative or resultative

of the relativization of Moses with the subsumption of the Pentateuch within

the postulated singular theme. On the «political and spiritual topicality of Mo-

ses», see W. van Bunge,

From Stevin to Spinoza: A Essay on Philosophy in the Seven-

teenth-Century Dutch Republic

, Leiden-Boston-Cologne, Brill, 2001, pp. 129-131.

495

This ultimate conclusion has been arrived at by various readers of

TTP

;

Preus commented: «Spinoza’s historical-critical study had the opposite motive

[opposite to the desire to get at the “very words of God” in their original

meanings], of course – to disarm the interpreters by highlighting the Bible’s

historical relativity and irrelevance as a norm of contemporary religious ideas»

(Id.,

Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority

, cit., p. 183); according to Le-

gaspi, «Spinoza’s program was not constructive. What little of value that could

be gained from the Bible could be ascertained from reason itself» (Id.,

The

Death of Scripture and the Rise of Biblical Studies

, cit., p. 24). As commented previ-

ously, what might be portrayed as attitudes or intentions made intelligible

within Spinoza’s historical context – biographically, intellectually, socially, po-

litically –, have deeper roots in Spinoza’s thought itself, developed and ex-

pressed in his coherently articulated philosophical system: «While on the first

superficial level the teaching of Scripture is reduced to the empty platitude of

“justice and charity”, on the second deeper level this content is refuted in or-

der to make room for its replacement by a new teaching, namely, the rational

plan of living presented in the

Ethics

» (J. C. Morrison,

Spinoza and History

, cit.,

p. 186). On the other hand, Spinoza seems to have been profoundly misun-

derstood by others, as in Frampton,

Spinoza and the Rise of Historical Criticism of