Nancy Levene, an Associate Professor of Religion at Indiana University in Bloomington with a Ph.D. from Harvard University, has written an energetic and inspiring book on Spinoza. Based on a thorough rereading of Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise and his other works, and in constant conversation with previous interpretations, Levene retrieves a constructive agenda from Spinoza's writing about biblical revelation that makes it once more possible to fathom why some earlier readers, such as the Romantic poet Novalis, considered Spinoza a ‘God intoxicated’ man rather than an atheist. In this reading, all formulaic reductions to dichotomic alternatives, such as immanence or transcendence, pantheism or panentheism, and the like are dismissed in favour of a ‘way of thinking’ in which religion, politics and reason are critically examined as revelatory of a single, if elusive, imperative. Levene locates this imperative in the formula Homo hominis deus (‘Man is God to man’), which, though not original to Spinoza, is taken to be emblematic for his programme.

More conventional readings of Spinoza would consider many of the passages Levene takes as genuine expressions of Spinoza's desire to balance the legitimate authorities of scripture, philosophy, theology and politics as mere tropes, unassailable by censorship, yet of clear meaning to those who, like Spinoza (as generally understood), defended the freedom of enquiry. But, as Levene points out, Spinoza never dismisses biblical revelation. Rather than rhetorical, his claim to be the first to have approached scripture with true respect, rather than preconceived theological or philosophical notions and in the interest of finding out what scripture itself teaches, emerges here as the genuine expression of a sophisticated ethical project, of a responsibility to self, to others, and to the objective reality of which we are part. In Levene's words:

The introduction to the four chapters (‘Vera Religio’, ‘Spinoza's Bible’; ‘Politics, Law, and the Multitude’ and ‘Reason, Revelation, and the Case of the Hebrews’) highlights a polemical aspect of Levene's approach to Spinoza. The attention to the possibility of retrieving the methodological unity of Spinoza's metaphysics and politics, and to do so from a political rather than metaphysical perspective, seems to have arisen from the desire to undo the damage Leo Strauss may have done to the image of Spinoza when he forced ‘him into the medieval rubric of a “persecuted” author’ (p. 10). Her project wishes to undo the image of Spinoza as an inveterate elitist and retrieve his radically democratic vision. In her words:

This is not the place to quibble with Levene's dismissal of Strauss or with details of her interpretation. It is certainly refreshing to see the varnish come off Spinoza and Spinoza scholarship, and for Spinoza to be taken seriously and as a sophisticated advocate of a radically open way of thinking. This strength of the volume richly compensates for the occasional suspicion that insights of German idealism, Feuerbach and Buber – all of whom were beholden to Spinoza – are rarely attributed to these preceding readers, but located in Spinoza's thought itself.

While Levene must be commended for questioning the established paradigm, she seems to fall into the trap of identifying her counter-narrative with Spinoza's original intention. If the reader has initial difficulties, finding Spinoza in Levene's telling, s/he should not therefore dismiss this book out of hand. While Levene's interpretation tends toward the overly sophisticated it nevertheless gives expression to a passionate intellect for whom justice and truth are intimately related.