The reformers and the figures who influenced them (Reuchlin and Mirandola) were Kabbalists and students of rabbinical scholars who taught the Talmud and Kabbalah.

This was unavoidable if you wanted to study Hebrew at the time. The proto-reformers believed you could only properly understand the Bible through the lens of the Kabbalah, which led to sola scriptura (individual gnosis is the key to biblical interpretation)

how exactly would the protestant reformation not have happened?

Everyone is talking about how Bitcoin price go up today, nobody is talking about how Bitcoin is a gun.
https://ark.page/archive?url=https://americanmind.org/salvo/our-humanity-hinges-on-a-cyber-second-amendment/

“Remember, O brethren, that we were once like you, and you will once become like us.”

Whatever happens tomorrow, remember this.

Trump could appoint 2 more Supreme Court justices