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Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes · 1651 primary

passage 205 of 397 · PART I. > CHAPTER XXXIII. OF THE NUMBER, ANTIQUITY, SCOPE, AUTHORITY, AND (5/8)

in brief
Hobbes dates many Old Testament prophets to Judah’s kings’ reigns or the Babylonian captivity, and argues the Old Testament’s present form was set after the Jews returned, before Ptolemy Philadelphus commissioned the Greek translation.

Ezekiel, Daniel, Aggeus, and Zacharias, in the Captivity.

When Joel and Malachi prophecyed, is not evident by their Writings. But considering the Inscriptions, or Titles of their Books, it is manifest enough, that the whole Scripture of the Old Testament, was set forth in the form we have it, after the return of the Jews from their Captivity in Babylon, and before the time of Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, that caused it to bee translated into Greek by seventy men, which were sent him out of Judea for that purpose. And if the Books of Apocrypha (which are recommended to us by the Church, though not for Canonicall, yet for profitable Books for our instruction) may in this point be credited, the Scripture was set forth in the form wee have it in, by Esdras; as may appear by that which he himself saith, in the second book, chapt. 14. verse 21, 22, &c. where speaking to God, he saith thus, "Thy law is burnt; therefore no man knoweth the things which thou has done, or the works that are to begin. But if I have found Grace before thee, send down the holy Spirit into me, and I shall write all that hath been done in the world, since the beginning, which were written in thy Law, that men may find thy path, and that they which will live in the later days, may live." And verse 45. "And it came to passe when the forty dayes were fulfilled, that the Highest spake, saying, ‘The first that thou hast written, publish openly, that the worthy and unworthy may read it; but keep the seventy last, that thou mayst deliver them onely to such as be wise among the people.’" And thus much concerning the time of the writing of the Bookes of the Old Testament.

The New Testament

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topics: fate, destiny, and necessity · history and the writing of history · scripture and its interpretation

Leviathan · Thomas Hobbes · 1651