Three Skeptics and the Bible

La Peyrère, Hobbes, Spinoza, and the Reception of Modern Biblical Criticism

Jeffrey L. Morrow

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781498239158, 9781498239172
• eBook ISBN: 9781498239165
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Biblical scholars by and large remain unaware of the history of their own discipline. This present volume seeks to remedy that situation by exploring the early history of modern biblical criticism in the seventeenth century prior to the time of the Enlightenment when the birth of modern biblical criticism is usually dated. After surveying the earlier medieval origins of modern biblical criticism, the essays in this book focus on the more skeptical works of Isaac La Peyrere, Thomas Hobbes, and Baruch Spinoza, whose biblical interpretation laid the foundation for what would emerge in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as modern biblical criticism.

1

The Emergence of Modern Biblical Criticism

Modern biblical criticism has a long history, with deep roots stretching back prior to the emergence of modernity and the Enlightenment, prior to the Reformation and even the Renaissance, into the medieval period. Recently, Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker have made the case that modern biblical criticism begins to develop at least by the dawn of the fourteenth century, if not earlier.20 Their recognition of the early roots of modern biblical criticism, and particularly historical criticism, is certainly one of the strengths of their volume. A further strength is in how well they communicate the many ways in which biblical exegetes sometimes unwittingly become partisans in a much older political conflict: throne vs. altar. In a moment of brutal honesty, Albert Schweitzer conceded that the historical critical method was at root, “an aide in the struggle for deliverance from dogma.”21 Such methods became state-sponsored tools used in the states’s battles with the churches of Europe, and initially the Catholic Church in particular.22 It should come as no surprise that the very states who supported such academic projects most (Germany, France, England), were also states concerned at various times with episcopal appointments, seizing church land, and exiling religious orders.23

In this present chapter, I focus on the historical connection between politics and the biblical criticism which laid the groundwork for later historical biblical criticism. I begin tracing the roots of modern biblical criticism from medieval Muslim politics and polemics into the political world of medieval Christian theology. Next, I continue this trajectory into the Renaissance and Reformation, showing how the post-Reformation “wars of religion” shaped the foundations of early modern biblical criticism. Then I examine Enlightenment and nineteenth-century historical criticism, highlighting nationalistic motivations in such criticism. Finally, I provide an overview of the historical church and state conflict which provides an unrecognized context for understanding the history of modern biblical criticism. This chapter is not intended to be an exhaustive account, but merely an introductory summary of this too often neglected historical genealogy of modern historical biblical criticism.24

Medieval Political Precursors to Early Modern Historical Critics

Within both Jewish and Christian communities, certain hermeneutical assumptions and logical interpretive conclusions developed as the Scriptures were being canonized and rules for interpretation were being set forth. James Kugel maintains that there were at least four basic assumptions implied in the exegesis of early Jewish and Christian interpreters. He explains:

[1] They assumed that the Bible was a fundamentally cryptic text: that is, when it said A, often it might really mean B . . . . [2] Interpreters also assumed that the Bible was a book of lessons directed to readers in their own day. It might seem to talk about the past, but it is not fundamentally history. It is instruction, telling us what to do . . . . Ancient interpreters assumed this not only about narratives like the Abraham story but about every part of the Bible . . . . [3] Interpreters also assumed that the Bible contained no contradictions or mistakes. It is perfectly harmonious, despite its being an anthology. . . . In short, the Bible, they felt, is an utterly consistent, seamless, perfect book . . . . [4] Lastly, they believed that the entire Bible is essentially a divinely given text, a book in which God speaks directly or through His prophets.25

Such views of Scripture came under attack even before the Christian period, and particularly on the issue of the divine origin of the Pentateuch. Early heretics attempted to curtail any Jewish claims to the divine authority of the Torah by attacking the history of its origins. The pre-Christian proto-Gnostic group known as the Nasarenes attempted to do this by denying the Torah’s Mosaic authorship, which was assumed for the Pentateuch for much of Jewish and Christian history.26 Later, in the Christian period, the third century Roman Neo-Platonist philosopher Porphyry also questioned the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, as well as other traditional attributions of authorship and origin, in his polemical works against Christianity.27 These polemicists attempted to attack the history of Jewish and Christian claims concerning Scripture in order to denigrate their claims of the divine inspiration of Scripture.

One important, but often neglected, development that helped pave the way for the modern work of historical biblical criticism was the medieval Muslim appropriation of Gnostic, Roman, and Christian polemical literature attacking the Jewish Torah.28 Ibn Ḥazm (994–1064) is one of the earliest and most famous examples. He became one of the most important medieval thinkers to use philological analyses and historical arguments to deconstruct traditional Jewish and Christian views of Scripture, particularly regarding historical claims, and to attempt to curb all forms of spiritual interpretation.29 In his work, “Discerning between Religions, Ideologies, and Sects,” Ibn Ḥazm employed a host of arguments deconstructing the Jewish Torah as well as the New Testament.30

Ibn Ḥazm witnessed firsthand the brutalities of politics within the caliphate structure in Muslim Spain, as his family went from a position of favorable political status with the ruling powers, to political exiles while he was a child. As an adult, Ibn Ḥazm proved to be an accomplished Muslim jurist, as well as a philosopher, philologist, and even poet. Politics would reenter his life in a dramatic way when he found himself bypassed for an elite office in the caliphate that he believed should have been rightfully given to him. To add insult to injury, it was not simply to another skilled Muslim jurist that the office was handed, but rather it was given to the Jewish anti–Muslim polemicist, Shmuel Ibn Nagrela, known in the world of Judaism as Shmuel Ha Naggid (993–1056). This is the context for understanding Ibn Ḥazm’s polemical literature.31

Ibn Ḥazm’s polemical literature, which targeted competing Muslim philosophical and legal schools as well as those of other religious traditions like Christianity, included over one hundred pages of scathing polemics attacking Judaism. In retaliation to Ibn Nagrela, Ibn Ḥazm heaped opprobrium on his opponent, a...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Emergence of Modern Biblical Criticism
• Chapter 2: The Biblical Criticism of Isaac La Peyrère in Context
• Chapter 3: The Biblical Criticism of Thomas Hobbes in Context
• Chapter 4: The Biblical Criticism of Baruch Spinoza in Context
• Chapter 5: Biblical Hermeneutics and the Creation of Religion
• Conclusion
• Bibliography