Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

In yesterday's entry I outlined Spinozistic philosophy in six points. The sixth of these concerned Biblical exegesis. I'm returning to that today only to provide two quotes that illustrate the attitude I mentioned there. Everything italicized below is in the words of Spinzo, the quotation marks are the words of the scriptures as he is quoting them. In order to understand, in the case of miracles, what actually took place, we ought to be familiar with Jewish phrases and metaphors; anyone who did not make sufficient allowance for these, would be continually seeing miracles in Scripture where nothing of the kind is intended by the writer; he would thus miss the knowledge not only of what actually happened, but also of the mind of the writers of the sacred text. Scripture makes the general assertion in several passages that nature's course is fixed and unchangeable. In Ps. 148:6, for instance, and Jer. 31:35. The wise man also, in Eccles. 1:10, distinctly teaches th...

I recommend, for any actual or aspiring Bible scholars among my vast readership, the blog BIBLE WANDERINGS, in which a woman who describes herself as a "contemplative scholar" gives us the benefit of her thoughts about the books as she reads through them carefully. She finds odd the story, in 1 Chronicles 17, of how the Lord became angry with David for taking a census . I also recommend the comments section, in which Shiba says that the King, in taking the census, was telling God that he, David., didn't trust God, he wanted instead to put his faith in numbers. "This certainly doesn't mean that taking a census or knowing how many men you have in your army is wrong, but this was a special case, as we can see by the context." For Chistian readers, there will surely be extra resonance here -- another earthly sovereign was demanding a census at the time of the birth of Jesus, we're told.