Baruch Spinoza on Religious text

“A miracle, whether in contravention to, or beyond, nature, is a mere absurdity; and, therefore, ... what is meant in Scripture by a miracle can only be a work of nature, which surpasses, or is believed to surpass, human comprehension.”

“Scripture does not explain things by their secondary causes, but only narrates them in the order and the style which has most power to move men, and especially uneducated men, to devotion; and therefore it speaks inaccurately of God and of events, seeing that its object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold of the imagination. If the Bible were to describe the destruction of an empire in the style of political historians, the masses would remain unstirred.”