In this essay, I trace back how already during his lifetime Newton was fashioned as an icon of science and how, after his death, his scholarly writings were considered inconvenient truths. He helped to shape our rational world view. Revered in his own lifetime, he discovered the laws of gravity and motion and invented calculus. It also uses numerous comparisons with the results of experiments. In his book, Newton was the first to have a diagram showing a prism being used as a beam expander and the use of multiple-prism arrays. In it, he formulated the corpuscular theory of light and the theory of color. But this does not hold just for Newton: his contemporary Robert Boyle was a prolific writer in both science and theology, yet his theological writings are completely forgotten. Isaac Newton changed the way we understand the Universe. In 1704 Newton published his book Opticks. He founded the fields of classical mechanics, optics and calculus, among other contributions to algebra and thermodynamics. With one or two exceptions, historians of scholarship or theology have ignored Newton’s scholarly writings all together. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was one of the worlds most famous and influential thinkers.
Yet Newton the scholar is hardly known beyond the boundaries of the discipline of history of science. Contemporaries were impressed with the breadth and depth of his theological knowledge and understanding, to the extent that John Mill sought-and received-his help in compiling what would become the standard critical edition of the Greek New Testament, published in 1707. This is testified also by his manuscript Nachlass: over five million words, about half of his written output, were devoted to religious topics, including eschatology, church history, and Scripture-driven chronology. Yet Newton himself considered his studies of Scriptures, in particular the prophecies in the books of Daniel and Revelation, as far more important. A devout Christian and great mathematician, Newton is remembered as the discoverer of the law of gravity. His Principia (1687) and Opticks (1704) were key texts during the Scientific Revolution and shaped our modern understanding of the world. Isaac Newton (1642–1727) has come down in history as one of the most famous and influential scientists of all time. He did invent reflecting lenses for telescopes, which produced clearer images in a smaller telescope compared with the refracting models of the time.
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