Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy

by Jonathan A.C. Brown

How could one read the Hebrew Bible free of tradition when the very grammar and lexicon of biblical Hebrew itself had been defined and passed down by the same rabbis? The archaic language was a heritage of the past and was subject to all the same historical skepticism as rabbinic tradition. Though he submitted that changing the meaning of words is much harder than altering religious teachings, Spinoza had to admit that even biblical Hebrew was under the power of the rabbis. Just like Arabic, the Hebrew script was incomplete (lacking short vowels) and its early grammar fluid. One had to know what it meant to read it. Even the meanings of many biblical words were known only through the teachings of the rabbis. Because Spinoza was committed to a method of interpreting the Bible that drew on the Bible alone, he had to accept that if the text did not yield clear answers on its own, ‘we must simply give up’ on the point in question. Ultimately, core matters necessary for salvation and happiness would be clear, since Spinoza believed they were universal anyway.90