Fraenkel, Carlos:
Could Spinoza Have Presented the 'Ethics' as the True Content of the Bible?

In: Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 4 (2008), [1]-50

Literature type: Articles
Language: English
Thematic areas: Ethics, Theology / biblical hermeneutics / philosophy of religion, Previous history (e.g. Descartes, Stoicism), Contemporaries and context
Subject: KV, PPC/CM, TTP
Subject (individuals): Bliyenbergh, Willem van; Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm ; Maimonides, Moses; Meyer, Lodewijk

Complete bibliographic evaluation: yes
Autopsy: yes
English commentary: "My main thesis is that this inconsistency" - between his argument in the TTP, that "Scripture contains no truth", one the one hand, and the various passages in different works "in which he attributes a true core to Scripture", on the other hand - "is best explained by assuming that Spinoza is commited to two projects that he was unable to reconcile: he wants to use religon as a replacement of philosophy that provides the basis for the best life accessible to non-philosphers and he wants to refute religion's claim to truth in order to defend the feedom to philosophize" (p. 1-2).

Link to this page: http://spinoza.hab.de/detail.php?id=13054&LANG=EN