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Isaac Newton'sChronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published in 1728, one year after the great man's death, unleashed a storm of controversy. And for good reason. The book presents a drastically revised timeline for ancient civilizations, contracting Greek history by five hundred years and Egypt's by a millennium.Newton and the Origin of Civilizationtells the story of how one of the most celebrated figures in the history of mathematics, optics, and mechanics came to apply his unique ways of thinking to problems of history, theology, and mythology, and of how his radical ideas produced an uproar that reverberated in Europe's learned circles throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. Jed Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold reveal the manner in which Newton strove for nearly half a century to rectify universal history by reading ancient texts through the lens of astronomy, and to create a tight theoretical system for interpreting the evolution of civilization on the basis of population dynamics. It was during Newton's earliest years at Cambridge that he developed the core of his singular method for generating and working with trustworthy knowledge, which he applied to his study of the past with the same rigor he brought to his work in physics and mathematics. Drawing extensively on Newton's unpublished papers and a host of other primary sources, Buchwald and Feingold reconcile Isaac Newton the rational scientist with Newton the natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian, and chronologist of ancient history.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is best known for his natural philosophical and mathematical works. Yet he devoted ample time to the study of ancient chronology, resulting in the posthumously published The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728). Here, Newton attempted to show how the antiquity of Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and other Mediterranean nations could be reinterpreted to fit the timespan allowed for by Scripture. As the hundreds of books from his library and the thousands of manuscript pages devoted to the topic show, the Chronology was long in the making. This volume provides the first comprehensive analysis of the genesis and evolution of Newton's studies of ancient history and demonstrates how these emerged from that other major scholarly project of his, the interpretation of the apocalyptic prophecies in Scripture. A careful study of Newton's reading, note-taking, writing, and ordering practices provides the key to unravelling and reconstructing the chronology of Newton's chronological studies, bringing to light writings hitherto hidden in the archives.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) devoted ample time to the study of ancient chronology, resulting in the posthumously published The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728). Here, Newton attempted to show how the antiquity of Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and other Mediterranean nations could be reinterpreted to fit the timespan allowed for by Scripture. Yet, as the hundreds of books from his library and the thousands of manuscript pages devoted to the topic show, the Chronology was long in the making. This volume provides the first full analysis of the genesis and evolution of Newton's studies of ancient history and demonstrates how these emerged from that other major project of his, the interpretation of the apocalyptic prophecies in Scripture. A careful study of Newton's reading, note-taking, writing, and ordering practices provides the key to unravelling and reconstructing the chronology of Newton's chronological studies, bringing to light writings hitherto hidden in the archives.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) devoted ample time to the study of ancient chronology, resulting in the posthumously published The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728). Here, Newton attempted to show how the antiquity of Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and other Mediterranean nations could be reinterpreted to fit the timespan allowed for by Scripture. Yet as the hundreds of books from his library and the thousands of manuscript pages devoted to the topic show, the Chronology was long in the making. This volume provides the first full analysis of the genesis and evolution of Newton’s studies of ancient history and demonstrates how these emerged from that other major project of his, the interpretation of the apocalyptic prophecies in Scripture. A careful study of Newton’s reading, note-taking, writing, and -ordering practices provides the key to unravelling and reconstructing the chronology of Newton’s chronological studies, bringing to light writings hitherto hidden in the archives.

Newton's scientific achievements were published and celebrated in his lifetime. But little was known about his profound interest in religion, which was entirely unpublished at the time of his death in 1727.

The timeless and unchanging nature of God was defended by Dr. Eric Mascall throughout his books. He argued against process theology, and in particular the works of mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who was one of its foremost exponents. In his books, Mascall defended the distinction between our temporal and created nature and God’s divine and uncreated nature as found in historic theology. In a manner suited to his learning, he discussed the implications of modern physics for theology.

More than four centuries after the Copernican Revolution and the consequent dismissal of Aristotelian Cosmology, the modern model of the cosmos has reached a similar if not superior level of a satisfactory understanding of physical reality. This extraordinary feat was achieved by using the Galilean scientific method of investigation, which was demonstrated to be extremely powerful in modeling cosmic physical phenomena. Unexpectedly, the main global characteristic of the cosmos was found to be its evolution in time; the universe’s history passes through very different phases, all linked together by a subtle fil rouge. This very fact, by now incontrovertible, is challenging our interpretation of reality by the sole use of the scientific method. The time may have come to reconnect, in a collaborative and constructive way, science, philosophy, and theology, which for too long have proceeded along independent, parallel, or even divergent paths. Only in this way may we hope to reach a more satisfactory understanding of global reality.

Godly Scholar: The Making of Isaac Newton Dana Jalobeanu For more than half a century, the field of Newton studies was characterized by a long and “exciting chase,” as Richard H. Popkin aptly described the painstaking process of reading, transcribing, attempting to date, understand and interpret the multitude of Newton’s manuscripts. Sometimes, the chase brought remarkable discoveries; but quite often it ended in puzzles, paradoxes and unanswered questions. Take, for example, one decade of Newton’s life, from 1670 to 1680. In these years Newton undertook extensive research in optics and published his first paper on light and colors; he engaged in extensive controversies over refraction, the nature of light and colors and the role of experiment in natural philosophical demonstrations; he wrote (and published) an extensive paper on light sometimes characterized as “alchemical cosmology”; he worked on advanced mathematics, corresponded with Boyle on the nature of chemical bonding, corrected and rethought his initial theory of the aether; corresponded (and quarrelled) with Robert Hooke over the nature of (a force of) gravitation. And yet, if one judges by the sheer bulk of manuscripts coming from the same decade, Newton was not really concerned with any of these issues. His major projects were quite different: they involved nothing short of rewriting the prophetic history, clarifying (and perhaps correcting) the corrupted history of Christianity; finding the “original of religion” and the psychological and political mechanism of idolatry. A sidetrack project involved extensive alchemical experimentation and the reformulation of the entire alchemical vocabulary. None of these major projects was published during Newton’s lifetime. Indeed, until quite recently scholars seemed to agree with Richard S. Westfall that none of these major investigations was ever finished.

This paper draws attention to the remarkable closing words of Isaac Newton's Optice (1706) and subsequent editions of the Opticks (1718, 1721), and tries to suggest why Newton chose to conclude his book with a puzzling allusion to his own unpublished conclusions about the history of religion. Newton suggests in this concluding passage that the bounds of moral philosophy will be enlarged as natural philosophy is 'perfected'. Asking what Newton might have had in mind, the paper first considers the idea that he was foreshadowing the 'moral Newtonianism' developed later in the eighteenth century; then it considers the idea that he was perhaps pointing to developments in natural theology. Finally, the paper suggests that Newton wanted to at least signal the importance of attempting to recover the true original religion, and perhaps was hinting at his intention to publish his own extensive research on the history of the Church.