Spinoza and the Reformation Protestants

Barrok spinoza is one of the most influential thinkers in western history. His family were jewish refugees from portugal and he made his living by grinding lenses for the new technological wonders of the telescope and microscope. A generation before spinoza, the pilgrim fathers had fled the tolerant liberalism of the republic to establish their own theocracy in america. The notion that the bible was not the unchanging word of god, a product of human understanding and human effort exploded into the salons of europe.