The Newton Theological Papers Project: A Comprehensive Online Edition of Newton's Theological Papers

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Isaac Newton is arguably the greatest mathematical physicist the world has witnessed, being the first discoverer of calculus, the heterogeneity of white light, and Universal Gravitation. However, he was a devout Christian and his first interest was his religious work. When he died in 1727, he left over 3 million words of theology, and over a million words of alchemy. His religious writings were deeply heretical, since at an early age he had come to believe that Jesus Christ was not part of a Holy Trinity. Because he would have become a social pariah, or even been imprisoned if his views had been made public, he kept virtually all of his writings in this area secret, and indeed the bulk of them (now housed in Jerusalem) only came to the attention of scholars in the 1960s. The Newton Project was formed in 1998 and is currently based at the University of Sussex, working in partnership with other scholarly groups in the US, Canada, Europe and the UK. Its ambitious long term goal is to publish online everything that Newton ever wrote, along with whatever comments and commentaries on Newton and his work have been published in the last three hundred years. We believe that this is an appropriate monument to a unique individual whose accomplishments are of global significance.At an early stage the project set out to publish Newton's theological writings in a pioneering online edition according to exacting scholarly standards. Without compromising the scholarly excellence of our work, the Web allows us to publish materials at a vastly faster rate, and at a greatly reduced expense compared to what is possible with printed works. Unlike printed editions, editors working online can aim to publish every little deletion or blot that Newton made on the page, revising any mistakes along the way. Accordingly, readers of these materials can see a 'diplomatic' transcription, which records all of Newton's marks on a page, or a 'normalised' version, which presents a cleaner version of the same text.Only a small percentage of these texts had ever been seen by more than a handful of scholars before we started to publish them. However, with generous support from the AHRC, the project has already made over two million words of these writings freely available to a world wide audience. In this application, the Newton Project proposes to complete the online edition of Newton's religious writings by transcribing and publishing four major documents, currently housed in Jerusalem, Oxford and Geneva. We aim to complete the transcription of Newton's theological writings by the end of 2012. The magnitude of this achievement is indicated by the fact that once complete, they will represent the largest body of 'born digital' text by any individual.The completion of the task will allow scholars and non-academic audiences to see the full range of Newton's astonishing theological works, and will allow researchers to tackle the difficult question of how different aspects of his work were related. Did Newton's theological work influence his scientific work, or vice versa? Is his theological work related in any way to his alchemical writings (now available online through the Chymistry of Isaac Newton site at the University of Indiana)? Or are they all separate and 'compartmentalised' activities? However, strenuous efforts have been made by the Newton Project team to make the texts on the site as comprehensible and as accessible as possible to a non-academic audience. An easy to use interface and a 'tour' on the front page allow general readers to sample the most exciting elements of Newton's writings, including extraordinary information taken from his private notebooks. The project is especially interested in tailoring the site's contents to schools and university students.