03_modern_0205_17th_Cent_Enlight_Short

During the 17th century, the Enlightenment was influenced by three main forces: science, schism (referring to the religious war), and skepticism. Science led to new discoveries that questioned religious beliefs. Schism caused a third of Europe to die, prompting Hugo Grotius to propose a new international policy. Skepticism was demonstrated by Rene Descartes and later applied by Birgit Spinoza to question the authorship of the Bible. Richard Simon and Jean Leclerc later became central figures in biblical criticism, with Simon developing a theory on the composition of the Pentateuch. By 1700, biblical criticism had gained attention. There were three main forces that contributed to the Enlightenment of the 17th century. Science, schism, and skepticism. The first one, science. New discoveries were questioning long-standing religious beliefs, and this led some to try to fit the Bible into their scientific notions. The next force was schism, referring to the 30-year religious war, which left a third of Europe dead. Hugo Grotius was an expert on both religion and politics, so he set forth a new international policy, which people were ready to hear at that point. He was one of the first major Christian figures to publicly deny the full inspiration of the Bible. This was around 1620. The third force was skepticism. Rene Descartes doubted everything until he finally arrived at his foundational axiom, I think, therefore I am. Well, a Jewish Christian, Birgit Spinoza, ten years later, applied Descartes' skeptical thinking around the 1640s to the Bible, and it was the first to question the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. So, science, schism, and skepticism. Remember, this is the time of the Puritans. The book of criticism isn't really quite in the air yet. It wasn't until after the Puritan century that two guys came on the scene and had a big fight about it that people started paying attention. The two guys were Richard Simon and Jean Leclerc. Richard Simon is known today as the father of biblical criticism. Remember how Spinoza was the first one to question Mosaic authorship? Well, Richard Simon took Spinoza's criticism and really developed it into a full-scale theory on how the Pentateuch was composed. So that's Spinoza. And Simon Leclerc was actually a student of Hugo Grotius, the political theorizer that we mentioned earlier. And he wasn't the same line of thought as Hugo. He just rejected the full inspiration of the Bible out of the box. He was like, look, Richard, you're trying too hard. If you want to undermine the Bible, you don't have to construct an elaborate theory for its authorship, which, by the way, you don't have any proof for. Just say that you reject the inspiration of the Bible at the outset, like a man. Anyways, because of this feud by 1700, biblical criticism had gone, and most people were aware of it.