Introduction: Spinoza and Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic

Tür:

Kitap

Yazar:

Jetze Touber

Yayın yılı:

2018

Yayıncı:

Oxford University Press

The introductory chapter sketches the broad developments in Early Modern philology, essential for appreciating Spinoza’s biblical criticism, set against the background of seventeenth-century Dutch society. A historiographical discussion outlines the interfaces between Spinoza’s biblical criticism, Early Modern hermeneutics, and Dutch Reformed theology and ecclesiology. A methodological section introduces the reader to two key concepts: ‘philology’ and ‘scripturarianism’. ‘Philology’ is used to refer to a set of techniques employed to understand the literal wording of ancient texts in their historical contexts: textual criticism, language studies, and historical contextualization, including antiquarianism and chronology. The word ‘scripturarianism’ denotes the continuation of a humanist programme of philological investigation of the Bible in the later seventeenth century, a programme that was increasingly controversial. Concentrating on these aspects in biblical interpretation, seventeenth-century debates regain a measure of complexity that currently threatens to be lost because of a one-sided fascination for rationalist philosophy.

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