Spinoza as probable Hebrew translator of a Quaker missionary tract.

This is the English and Hebrew title page (and first page of text) to Margaret Fell's (1614-1702) bilingual edition of A Loving Salutation to the Seed of Abraham (1660), a Quaker missionary tract. As you can see, in Hebrew it is called שאלת שלום באהבה. What makes this particularly interesting is that convincing, or at least compelling, circumstantial evidence points to none other than Benedict Spinoza as the translator. The evidence circles around a letter written by William Ames to Fell, in which he referred to the translator as a "Jew at amsterdam that by the Jews is cast out."

Scholars who have studied the question point out that around that time (=1657) there were four Dutch Jews in cherem, but only Spinoza fits all the criterion in Ames' description. Uriel D'acosta was already dead, having died in 1640. Another was Juan de Prado, and another was Daniel Ribera, who was not yet excommunicated. The translator was described as knowing Dutch, Portuguese and Hebrew; the book had to be translated from English into Dutch in order for the Jew to translate it to Hebrew, "because," according to Ames, "he whoe is toe translate it into Hebrew cannot understand english." Juan de Prado, as a recent Maranno returnee, probably did not know Hebrew very well. This leaves Spinoza, whom other evidence ties to the circle of the nascent Quaker movement. So if anyone ever asks if Spinoza ever flirted with Chareidism, the answer appears to be yes.

The following is the end of Margaret Fell's tract, which asks "Certain Queries, to the Teachers and Rabbi's [sic] among the Jews." At the end of these 20 questions, the rabbis are schoolmarmishly instructed to "Answer these Queries according to the LAW and PROPHETS in Number 2 Pencile."

Readers who are interested can peruse the Hebrew translation of Spinoza's grammar of the Hebrew language here.