The Books of Nature and Scripture: Recent Essays on Natural Philosophy, Theology and Biblical Criticism in the Netherlands of Spinoza’s Time and the British Isles of Newton’s Time

243 Pages·1994·8.189 MB·English

by  Richard H. Popkin (auth.), James E. Force, Richard H. Popkin (eds.)

THE BOOKS OF NATURE AND SCRIPTURE:
RECENT ESSAYS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. THEOLOGY.
AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN THE NETHERLANDS OF SPINOZA 'S TIME AND THE
BRITISH ISLES OF NEWTON'S TIME
ARCHNES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES
INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
139
THEBOOKSOFNATUREANDSCRWTURE
Recent Essays on Natural Philosophy, Theology, and
Biblical Criticism in
the Netherlands of Spinoza' s Time and
the British Isles of Newton's Time
EDITED BY
JAMES E. FORCE and RICHARD H. POPKIN
Directors: P. Dibon (Paris) and R. Popkin (Washington University, St. Louis and UCLA)
Editorial Board: J.F. Battail (Paris); F. Duchesneau (Montreal); A. Gabbey (New York);
T. Gregory (Rome); J.D. North (Groningen); M.J. Petry (Rotterdam); J. Popkin (Lexington);
Th. Verbeek (Utrecht)
Managing Editor: S. Hutton (The University of Hertfordshire)
Advisory Editorial Board: J. Aubin (Paris); A. Crombie (Oxford); H. de la Fontaine Verwey
(Amsterdam); H. Gadamer (Heidelberg); H. Gouhier (Paris); K. Hanada (Hokkaido
University); W. Kirsop (Melbourne); P.O. Kristeller (Columbia University); Elisabeth
Labrousse (Paris); A. Lossky (Los Angeles); J. Malarczyk (Lublin); E. de Olaso (C.I.F.
Buenos Aires); J. Orcibal (Paris); Wolfgang ROd (Miinchen); G. Rousseau (Los Angeles);
H. Rowen (Rutgers University, N.J.); J.P. Schobinger (Zurich); J. Tans (Groningen)
THE BOOKS OF NATURE AND SCRIPTURE:
RECENT ESSAYS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY,
THEOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN
THE NETHERLANDS OF SPINOZA'S TIME
AND THE BRITISH ISLES OF NEWTON'S TIME
Edited by
JAMES E. FORCE
University of Kentucky, Dept. of Philosophy, U.S.A.
and
RICHARD H. POPKIN
University of California. Los Angeles. U.S.A.
Emory University. U.S.A
SPRJNGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bible scholarship 1n the Netherlands of Sp1noza's tiNe and 1n the
British Isles of Newton's time 1 edited by James E. Force ana
Richard H. Popkin.
p. em. -- <International arch1ves of the history of Ideas
Archives lnternatlonales d'hlstolre des idees v. 1391
Includes 1ndex.
ISBN 978-90-481-4321-4 ISBN 978-94-017-3249-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-3249-9
1. Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642-1727--Rellglon. 2. Sp1noza.
Benedlctus de, 1632-1677--Rellgion. 3. Bible--Study and teacnlng
-Great Britain--History--17th century. 4. Bible--Study and
teaching--Netherlands--History--17th century. !. Force, James E.
II. Popkin, Richard Henry, 1923- III. Senes Arch1ves
internatlonales d'hlstolre des idees ; 139.
BX4827.N45B53 1994
220' .07'041--dc20 93-29487
ISBN 978-90-481-4321-4
Printed on acid}i-ee paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1994
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any means. electronic or mechanical.
including photocopying. recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system. without written permission from the copyright owner.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
(Richard H. Popkin, University of California. Los Angeles; Emory University) vii
I. Spinoza and Bible Scholarship
(Richard H. Popkin)
2. Comments on R. Popkin's Paper
(Amos Funkenstein, University of California, Berkeley; University of
Tel-Aviv) 21
3. Irrationality With or Without Reason: An Analysis of Chapter XV of the
Tractatus Theologico-politicus
(Jacqueline Lagree, University of Brest) 25
4. More, Newton, and the Language of Biblical Prophecy
(Sarah Hutton, University of Hertfordshire) 39
5. "Making a Shew": Apocalyptic Hermeneutics and the Sociology of
Christian Idolatry in the Work of Isaac Newton and Henry More
(Rob Iliffe, University of London) 55
6. Newton on Kabbalah
(Matt Goldish, Hebrew University. Jerusalem) 89
7. One Prophet Interprets Another: Sir Isaac Newton and Daniel
(Matania Z. Kochavi, Jerusalem) 105
8. "Pray Do Not Ascribe that Notion to Me": God and Newton's Gravity
(John Henry, University of Edinburgh) 123
9. Isaac Newton and Thomas Burnet: Biblical Criticism and the Crisis of
Late Seventeenth-Century England
(Scott Mandelbrote, All Souls College. Oxford) 149
10. The God of Abraham and Isaac (Newton)
(James E. Force, University of Kentucky) 179
II. "Moses's Principia": Hutchinsonianism and Newton's Critics
(DavidS. Katz, University of Tel-Aviv) 201
Index 213
v
INTRODUCTION
In the spring of 1991, Rob Iliffe was a Fellow at the U.C.L.A. Center for 17th-and
18th-Century Studies. Taking advantage of his presence in Los Angeles, Richard
Popkin organized a small conference at U.C.L.A.'s William Andrews Clark
Memorial Library on the topic of Spinoza and Newton as Bible Scholars. The
present collection of essays grew out of that one-day conference held at the Clark
Library on January 26, 1991. Four essayists in the present volume, James E. Force,
Amos Funkenstein, Rob Iliffe, and Richard H. Popkin, took part in the conference.
A fifth contributor to this volume, Matt Goldish, made his presence felt at the con
ference as an astute questioner present in the audience.
Everyone who participated in the conference felt that it was important to con
sider the nature of the contributions of both Spinoza and Newton to the study of the
Bible and to examine the relationship of their contributions in these fields to other
intellectual concerns at the time. During the conference in January, 1991, at the
congenial Clark Library, much lively discussion, formal and informal, took place
on this and related topics. The two editors of the current volume, Force and Popkin,
decided to broaden the discussion. We decided to ask several other scholars, whom
we knew to be interested in theological issues in the latter seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries, to contribute essays to a proposed volume covering a wide
range of themes relating to the understanding of philosophical, religious, scientific,
and theological ideas during the general time frame between 1660 and 1730 in the
Netherlands and the British Isles. We originally hoped that the authors would
provide us with roughly equal portions on Spinoza's world and on Newton's world.
However, possibly as a sign of growing interest in Newton's theology, many of the
authors chose to examine aspects of Newton's theological views both in themselves
and in contrast with others before, during, and after the period when he was
working out his biblical interpretations.
The essays in this volume are presented both by more established scholars and by
younger scholars (some of whom are publishing their first studies here) who represent
the vanguard of the next generation of those who will be dealing with these topics.
In many historical accounts, Spinoza's critical examination of Scripture is taken as
the beginning of modem biblical scholarship. Spinoza, in his Tractatus Theologico-
vii
James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin (eds.}, The Books of Nature and Scripture, vii-xviii
©1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
vm Introduction
politic us ( 1670), had claimed that the study of the Bible was much like the study of
Nature and that the Bible, like Nature, could be examined in a strictly scientific
way. By examining the Bible in this fashion, Spinoza opened up many historical,
philological, and philosophical-religious topics to be studied independently of any
religious considerations. The questions of who was the author of various parts of
the Scriptures, of when various books were written, of how the texts were transmit
ted to later generations, of what the author or authors were intending to convey,
have become central issues of biblical scholarship since Spinoza's time. Also,
many forms of modern Enlightenment irreligion grew out of the findings, theories,
and hypotheses of thinkers who followed the Spinozistic way of rationally analyz
ing the content of the Bible.
The man who was perhaps the greatest European Bible scholar in the period
immediately following the publication of Spinoza's ideas concerning biblical criti
cism, the French Oratorian, Father Richard Simon. said in his Histoire Critique du
Vieux Testament ( 1678), that he accepted Spinoza 's method of examining the
Bible, but that he did not accept Spinoza's conclusion. For Father Simon, the Bible
was a divinely inspired document. The problem for human beings at any particular
time was locating the one truly and directly inspired biblical text among the welter
of ancient and modern manuscripts, written in many languages, and printed in
many places, all claiming to be the text. Simon had far more scholarly ability and
knowledge than Spinoza possessed. He knew many ancient languages and had
studied all the manuscripts available at that time. In doing his researches, he
revealed the myriad number of problems which arise when one tried to reconstruct
the genuine, original, truly inspired, directly revealed text, the text God revealed to
Moses out of which the many, many man-made texts have come down to us
throughout the course of human history. Simon, in his various studies, presented
believers with an apparently endless set of research projects if they wished to find
the actual message which God communicated to Moses in ancient times. Many of
the problems which Simon raised in following out Spinoza's discussions are still
being examined and discussed by leading Bible scholars in the light of new textual
discoveries and subsequent interpretations.
Isaac Newton, writing privately about biblical matters from the mid-1660's until
his death in 1727, was also very concerned with discovering the text of Scripture,
but for very different reasons than those offered by Simon or Spinoza. Newton was
convinced that God had presented mankind in Scripture with certain most impor
tant clues about the future history of humanity. Newton's explorations of the prob
lems involved in uncovering the text and discovering the true meaning of the text
was carried on in private in the vast amount of unpublished manuscripts that he
drafted for almost sixty years. (About half of what Newton wrote was on religious
and theological topics; most has never been published.) Newton clearly saw the his
torical and philological problems involved in establishing the true text. He also saw
Introduction tx
the need for establishing precise rules for determining the actual meaning of
Scriptural passages. He was willing to accept many points which Spinoza and
Simon had raised (he owned a dogeared English translation of Simon's A Critical
History of the Old Testament as well as other works by Simon.) But Newton still
felt that with a proper method and with a proper moral and spiritual attitude, the
serious truth-seeker could identify and understand God's message in spite of the
many difficulties that existed. Newton was willing to consider that some of
Scripture was intended for the common person. Such passages must be examined in
just that light and not taken as literal truth. He also was convinced that from the
human point of view, the intelligibility of Scripture was progressive or additive. As
mankind got closer in time to the culmination of History, both our knowledge and
understanding of God's message would become clearer. Those who were properly,
i.e., spiritually, equipped would grasp what God was telling us. The task of unrav
elling God's message was, as Spinoza and Simon had said, historical and philologi
cal. It was also part of man's spiritual journey, a journey guided by God acting
directly and providentially in human history.
Only a small fraction of Newton's writings concerning the Bible and ancient
history has ever been published. His Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended
appeared posthumously in 1728 (with the Advertisement in the first edition that
Newton "was actually preparing it for the press at the time of his death") while his
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the apocalypse of St. John was
published in 1730, three years after his death, by the expedient of cobbling together
two of his private manuscripts. Hints about his more radical theological views
appeared in print in 1754 when two letters which he had written to John Locke
were eventually published. In them, Newton explained why he believed that the
Doctrine of the Trinity was NOT stated in Scripture and why it was an idolatrous
corruption of true Christian doctrine. Nonetheless, most of the enormous volume of
Newton's manuscript studies concerning the Bible and the development of early
Christian doctrine remains unpublished.
And due to the vicissitudes of fate, Newton's unpublished theological manu
scripts are presently scattered all over the planet. His theological writings (and his
alchemical ones as well) remained in the family's possession until 1936 when
these documents were finally dispersed at an auction at Sotheby's in London
after both Cambridge University and the British Museum refused to house
them. The most significant portion of the theological papers are now located in
the Jewish National & University Library in Jerusalem as part of the Yahuda
collection and in King's College Library, Cambridge, as part of the Keynes
collection. Various other libraries in Europe and America (e.g., the Babson
Institute) possess significant collections or individual manuscripts. Finally,
some individual pages of Newton's manuscripts are located in various collections,
public and private, in Japan, Europe, and the United States. Items that now come
x Introduction
up for sale are fetching enormous prices, far beyond what the entire 1936 auction
realized.
Abraham S. Yahuda, a Jewish Palestinian scholar of Arabic and other Near
Eastern languages and literature, was a major manuscript collector. At the 1936 dis
persal sale of Newton's theological manuscripts, Yahuda and Lord John Maynard
Keynes, the English economist, bought the largest part of what was auctioned.
Along with his own private papers, Keynes donated the collection of Newton man
uscripts which he had acquired at the 1936 auction to his college library in
Cambridge (King's College Library). Yahuda's collection of Newton manuscripts
arrived at the Jewish National & University Library, Jerusalem, by a more cir
cuitous route. Yahuda had been a professor of medieval Judaism in pre-Hitlerite
Germany and Spain. With the rise of Hitler, Yahuda moved to England. Yahuda
was not present at the 1936 Sotheby's auction but, when he finally became inter
ested in Newton's papers, he managed to assemble his collection by buying manu
scripts from dealers who had purchased various lots of Newton's manuscripts at the
Sotheby's auction. When the American dealer, Gabriel Wells, died, Yahuda
acquired most of Newton's manuscripts owned by Wells. In 1940, Yahuda became
a refugee in the United States. He transported his vast manuscript collection with
him to America where he tried, with the assistance of his close friend, Albert
Einstein, to get Harvard, Yale, or Princeton to take over his very large collection of
Newton's papers. All three institutions refused, even though Einstein tried to make
them realize the importance of the papers for understanding how Newton's creative
intelligence worked. Yahuda, on his deathbed in 1951, decided to leave his entire
manuscript collection, which contains much Near Eastern material in addition to
the Newton manuscripts, to what became the Jewish National & University Library
even though he had, over the years, become a most forceful anti-Zionist and oppo
nent of the new state of Israel. His family, after his death, attempted to block this
bequest of manuscripts. A long legal process ensued in New Haven, Connecticut
(where Yahuda died), but finally, in 1969, Yahuda 's huge collection of manuscripts
was shipped off to Jerusalem. Since 1972. when Richard S. Westfall received a
microfilm copy of the Yahuda collection of Newton's papers, they have begun to be
studied by scholars. Some of the authors in this volume are currently exploring how
to make Newton's theological manuscripts more accessible through advanced com
puter technology.
From the manuscript documents, combined with Newton's correspondence, pub
lished writings, and the writings of his close associates, it becomes clearer how
Newton fits into the seventeenth-century theological context and also, to some
extent, how Newton's religious and theological writings relate to the rest of his
intellectual concerns. It is obvious from the manuscripts that Newton was vitally
interested in research about the Bible his entire adult life. His desire to fathom the
secrets of the books of Daniel and Revelation was not a product of old age or senil-