Spinoza and the Language of Scripture
Abstract
In his works Spinoza remarks on the relationship between Hebrew and the culture of the ancient Israelites. Thus, the more we unerstand Hebrew, the better we understand the Bible. Moreover, understanding the Bible is for the non-philosophical masses essential for motivating lives of virtue. However, there are irremediable gaps in our knowledge of ancient Hebrew, and this might appear to undermine the moral motivational role that the Bible is supposed to play. But I suggest that the philological deficiency and the hermeneutical impediment should not effectively thwart the Bible’s properly edifying effect on non-philosophical readers.
Submitted: April 13, 2026 | Published Sept. 17, 2026 | Language: en
Keywords Hebrew • Virtue • Bible • Spinoza • Hermeneutics • Language
Copyright © 2026 Steven Nadler. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/Jolma/2723-9640/2026/01/004