Spinoza: Theological-Political Treatise (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy) by Spinoza

Author:Spinoza [Spinoza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2007-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

[5] From all this it is plainer than the noonday sun that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses but by someone else who lived many generations after Moses. But now we should perhaps consider the books cited in the Pentateuch which Moses himself did write. From these themselves, it is evident that they were something different from the Pentateuch.

For it emerges, first, from Exodus 17.14 that Moses, by the command of God, wrote an account of the war against Amalek. Alhough it is not clear from that chapter in which book it occurs, at Numbers 21.12 we find mentioned the ‘The Book of the Wars of God’ and it is doubtless there that the war against Amalek is narrated, along with an account of all the places where the Israelites encamped on their journey which the author of the Pentateuch, at Numbers 33.2, testifies were also described by Moses.

Moreover, Exodus 24.4 and 7 gives evidence of another book, called ‘The Book of the Covenant’14 which Moses read out to the Israelites when God first entered into the covenant with them. This book, or letter, contained very little: simply the laws, or commands of God which are set out in Exodus from ch. 20.22 to ch. 24, as no one will deny who reads the chapter cited above impartially and with an ounce of sound judgment. According to that chapter, as soon as Moses understood the feeling of the people about entering into a covenant with God, he immediately wrote down the pronouncements and laws of God, and in the first light of morning, after completing certain ceremonies, read out to the assembled multitude the conditions for entering into the covenant. When he had finished reading these and the multitude had understood them, the people bound themselves to them with full consent. From the shortness of the time in which it was written and from its purpose of making the covenant, it follows that this book contained nothing but the few things just mentioned.

It is evident finally that in the fortieth year after the exodus from Egypt Moses expounded all the laws he had made (see Deuteronomy 1.5), and renewed the people’s commitment to them (see Deuteronomy 29.14); he then wrote a book which contained the laws he had set out and the[123] new covenant (see Deuteronomy 31.9). This book was entitled ‘The Book of the Law of God’ and is the book that Joshua subsequently expanded by adding the account of the people’s renewal of the covenant again in his day, when they entered into covenant with God for the third time (see Joshua 24.25–6). But since we have no book extant which contains this covenant of Moses and the covenant of Joshua together, we must concede that it has perished – unless we adopt the desperate device of Jonathan, author of the Aramaic Paraphrase15 and twist the words of Scripture to suit ourselves. Faced by this difficulty, Jonathan preferred to corrupt Scripture rather than admit his own ignorance. Joshua 24.

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