Spinoza suffered two experiences which are strongly evident today. Although a Jew, he was excluded from the Jewish community; he also became a victim… - Benedictus de Spinoza

It is doubtful whether the translation “moral” is adequate anywhere in the Ethics where Spinoza rigorously exhibits his system. The opinion that he is one of the greatest opponents of moralism that ever lived seems not altogether unreasonable.

2«La causa verdadera de la superstición que la conserva y que la mantiene es, pues, el miedo […] todos estos objetos de falsa adoración no son sino fantasmas, hijos de un alma tímida que la tristeza arroja al delirio […] resulta que todos los hombres están sujetos a ella naturalmente […] variable e inconstante como todos los caprichos del alma humana y todos sus movimientos impetuosos, y en fin, que sólo la esperanza, el odio, la cólera y el fraude pueden hacerla subsistir; pues que no procede de la razón, sino de las pasiones más fuertes» (TTP Praef.).

It was not until the Twelfth Century of our era that the Pentateuch as a whole was subjected to rational scrutiny. The man who undertook the ungrateful task was a learned Spanish rabbi, Abraham ben Meir ibn Esra. He unearthed many absurdities, but... it was not until five hundred years later that anything properly describable as scientific criticism... came into being. Its earliest shining lights were the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes [with his Leviathan], and the Amsterdam Jew, Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza's "Tractatus Theologico-politicus", published in 1670, made the first really formidable onslaught upon the inspired inerrancy of the Pentateuch. It called attention to scores of transparent imbecilities … including a dozen or more palpable geographical and historical impossibilities … The answer of constituted authorities was to suppress the "Tractatus", but enough copies got out to reach the proper persons, and ever since then the Old Testament has been under searching and devastating examination.