The main course of this development [i.e., biblical criticism and formation of modern world] is described in the following pages as a movement which goes from the Continent to England and then at a later stage back to the Continent again. I have chosen England and the period of English Deism as the climax of the development I have traced because it was in that country, with its characteristic theological and philosophical history, not to mention its distinctive ecclesiastical politics, that typical views of the world developed which were to have lasting influence in forming even the hidden presuppositions in the interpretation of the Old Testament and in biblical exegesis generally. England can claim a prominent place in the history of the interpretation of the Bible. As Scholder already recognized, Germany did not join in this development until late in the eighteenth century.

Henning Graf Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World, 4.