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SUMMARY:The Word made Text: Benedict de Spinoza and Richard Simon confront
  the Bible - Dr Timothy Twining (Research Fellow at Gonville &amp\; Caius 
 College)
DTSTART:20180220T210000Z
DTEND:20180220T213000Z
UID:TALK101539@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Stephan Ursprung
DESCRIPTION:Two works\, among many others\, were consigned to the flames i
 n the late seventeenth century: Benedict de Spinoza's Tractatus theologico
 -politicus (1670) and Richard Simon's Histoire critique du Vieux Testament
  (1678). Their authors suffered comparable fates\, with Spinoza excommunic
 ated from the Jewish community in Amsterdam\, and Simon permanently exclud
 ed from the Oratory in Paris. Spinoza and Simon's books both appeared to p
 ose a common threat to the authority of the Bible. In proposing to conside
 r it strictly as a historical document they threatened to undermine its st
 atus as Sacred Scripture. The best efforts of the secular and religious au
 thorities would be in vain: published clandestinely in the Netherlands and
  furtively smuggled around Europe\, the illicit publication of these works
  was a watershed moment for what would in time become known as the 'Enligh
 tenment'.\n\nThis is a compelling part of one of the central stories of Eu
 ropean history\, but is it true? One way of approaching this question is t
 o return to Spinoza and Simon's treatments of the biblical text and\, in e
 xamining what it was they were doing\, reassess how far their work can be 
 brought into such an overarching narrative. This talk will focus on Simon'
 s work. It will show how the use of new\, previously unstudied\, evidence 
 alters our perception of his achievement in the Histoire critique\, and ho
 w this begins to form the basis for a new account of late seventeenth-cent
 ury intellectual change.
LOCATION:Senior Parlour\, Gonville and Caius College
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