Theology Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Richard H. Popkin

Critical Essay by Richard H. Popkin

SOURCE: "Newton as Bible Scholar," in Essays on the Context, Nature and Influence of Isaac Newton's Theology, by James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990, pp. 103-118.

In the following essay, Popkin reviews Newton's writings on the Bible, demonstrating how Newton analyzed the composition and nature of the Bible's books. Popkin maintains that Newton sought to present the Bible as historically accurate, and that Newton also believed the Bible contained corruptions deliberately placed there to encourage a false Trinitarian doctrine.

In his views about the text and import of the Bible, Sir Isaac Newton combined a most interesting mixture of modern Bible scholarship with an application, to the understanding of the Bible, of some of the findings of modern science and a firm conviction that, in the proper reading of the scriptural text, one could discover God's plan for human and world history. Newton wrote much...
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