Newton Papers on Show in Israel

A collection of 300-year-old manuscripts by Sir Isaac Newton are to go on show in Jerusalem, the first time they will have been on public display since they were bought at a London auction in 1936.

The manuscripts lay bare Newton's less well-known forays into religion and reveal his attempts to reassure an apocalypse-fearing public that the end was not nigh. In a paper from the early 1700s, Newton used clues from the Old Testament's Book of Daniel to assert that the world was safe from destruction until at least 2060. "It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner," he wrote.

The declaration, based on more dubious evidence than that for which Newton is renowned, was an attempt to uphold the credibility of the scriptures in the face of outlandish predictions by soothsayers. He added: "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."

The papers, purchased by a Jewish scholar at Sotheby's, have been kept under lock and key at Israel's national library in Jerusalem since 1969. Available only to a small number of scholars, they have never before been shown to the public.

Yemima Ben-Menahem, one of the exhibit's curators, said the papers reveal Newton's conviction that important knowledge was hiding in ancient texts.

"He believed there was wisdom in the world that got lost," she said. The papers also complicate the idea that science is diametrically opposed to religion, she added. "These documents show a scientist guided by religious fervour, by a desire to see God's actions in the world."