What manner of work is the Hebrew Bible? The 17th-century freethinker Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza had an answer. As part of his war to emancipate philosophy—the quest for the truth about existence and the meaning of the good life—from the influence of religion, he reduced the biblical message to, in effect, one word: obedience. "Scripture," wrote Spinoza, "does not teach philosophical matters, but piety alone."
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