When we look for the real roots of those first reflections which brought about a critical concern with the Bible, we come upon a largescale cultural movement throughout Europe which must be set alongside the Reformation as the most powerful force in the formation of the modern world. There is a clear line of development in the history of theology, stages of which can be seen in late mediaeval Spiritualism, the rationalistic and moralistic trends within Humanism and the Anabaptist movement, and finally in the two great trends which dominated church politics: Puritanism and rationalistic liberalism (Latitudinarianism and Deism proper) in England. Writers have aptly spoken of the ‘two Reformations’ which stand in juxtaposition in the sixteenth century and which were a definitive influence on later developments. This second line, which has also been sweepingly called ‘Humanism’ in contrast to the message of the Reformation, was much more influential in the development of the cultural history of modern times. It, and not the Reformation proper, also determined the relationship of most recent academic Protestant theology to the Bible; its basic views have been largely normative for Old Testament exegesis.

Henning Graf Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World, 3.