Our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy have changed. We think you'll like them better this way.

African Believe Sodomy Bible Must Emendation It's Content For Civil Knowledge.

  • Broadcast in Religion
Cosmic Philosopher

Cosmic Philosopher

×  

Follow This Show

If you liked this show, you should follow Cosmic Philosopher.
h:468203
s:11863442
archived

 As a boy he had undoubtedly been one of the star pupils in the congregation’s Talmud Torah school. He was intellectually gifted, and this could not have gone unremarked by the congregation’s rabbis. It is possible that Spinoza, as he made progress through his studies, was being groomed for a career as a rabbi. But he never made it into the upper levels of the curriculum, those which included advanced study of Talmud. At the age of seventeen, he was forced to cut short his formal studies to help run the family’s importing business. Then, on July 27, 1656, Spinoza was issued the harshest writ of herem, ban or excommunication, ever pronounced by the Sephardic community of Amsterdam; it was never rescinded. We do not know for certain what Spinoza’s “monstrous deeds” and “abominable heresies” were alleged to have been, but an educated guess comes quite easy. No doubt he was giving utterance to just those ideas that would soon appear in his philosophical treatises. In those works, Spinoza denies the immortality of the soul; strongly rejects the notion of a transcendent, providential God—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and claims that the Law (i.e., the commandments of the Torah and rabbinic legal principles) was neither literally given by God nor any longer binding on Jews. Can there be any mystery as to why one of history’s boldest all appearances, Spinoza was content finally to have an excuse for departing from the community and leaving Judaism behind; his faith and religious commitment were, by this point, gone. Within a few years, he left Amsterdam altogether. By the time his extant correspondence begins, in 1661, he is living in Rijnsburg, not far from Leiden. While in Rijnsburg, he worked on the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, an essay on philosophical method, and the Short Treatise on God, Man 

 

Facebook comments

Available when logged-in to Facebook and if Targeting Cookies are enabled