Texts show Newton's deep religious

[SirKnight1788]

Scanned in from the News Letter (so allow for typos)
www.newsletter.co.uk
Sat 28/7/07


Texts show Newton's deep religious faith

THREE-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history's greatest scientist.

Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics.

But in a new Jerusalem exhibit (Newton's Secrets from the Jewish National and University Library) he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law — even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters — and combing the Old Testament's Book of Daniel for clues about the world's end.

The documents, purchased by a Jewish scholar at a Sotheby's auction in London in 1936, have been kept in safes at Israel's national library in Jerusalem since 1969. Available for decades only to a small number of scholars, they have never before been shown to the public.

 

[Diogenes]

Newton was a 33rd degree Mason. He was not a product of the enlightenment, but something closer to an alchemist from the Middle Ages. For him there was no conflict whatsoever between science and religion, faith and reason. Also, they found many different versions of the Book of Revelations on his desk at Oxford after he died. He was not specifically into 'setting dates' for the end of the world (though some of his sub text notes did make estimations). He did try to set a confirmed date for the birth of Christ, and this is the date that scholars readjusted their estimations to ever since (it was based on his astronomical calculations for that era). There's a very good site on the theological texts of Newton which I don't have at this time but will post when I get it. Incidentally, Newton was a very odd kid that was prone to visions, temper tantrums and deep depression. When a colleague asked him how he ever came up with The Principia Mathematica his answer was, "By thinking without ceasing."

 

[Diogenes]

Some more on Newton's strange religiosity. Newton believed himself to have been divinely appointed to interpret the book of Daniel. I believe it was Newton who began a theological interpretation of the book of Revelations that entails the coming of Christ's Kingdom through a series of human and historical events. This would point to his Deist bretheren in one sense-but believing that he had been divinely inspired would certainly not include Newton in the same respect. Trying to reach a conclusion on the mind of Newton is like trying to reassemble a rubik's cube diffused into the farthest reaches of our galaxy...