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

艾萨克·牛顿可以说是世界上见证过的最伟大的数学物理学家，他是微积分、白光的不均一性和万有引力的第一个发现者。然而，他是一个虔诚的基督徒，他的第一兴趣是他的宗教工作。当他于1727年去世时，他留下了300多万字的神学和100多万字的炼金术。他的宗教著作是非常异端的，因为在他很小的时候，他就开始相信耶稣基督不是圣三位一体的一部分。因为如果他的观点被公之于众，他可能会成为社会的弃儿，甚至会被监禁，他几乎对这一领域的所有著作都保密，事实上，其中大部分作品(现在收藏在耶路撒冷)直到20世纪60年代才引起学者的注意。牛顿计划成立于1998年，目前设在苏塞克斯大学，与美国、加拿大、欧洲和英国的其他学术团体合作。它雄心勃勃的长期目标是在网上发布牛顿所写的一切，以及过去300年来发表的对牛顿和他的工作的任何评论和评论。我们认为，这是一个独特的个人的适当纪念碑，他的成就具有全球意义。在早期阶段，该项目开始按照严格的学术标准在开创性的网络版中出版牛顿的神学著作。在不影响我们工作的学术卓越的情况下，Web允许我们以更快的速度发布材料，并且与印刷作品相比，成本大大降低。与印刷版不同，在网上工作的编辑可以致力于公布牛顿在页面上所做的每一处微小的删除或污点，纠正沿途的任何错误。因此，阅读这些材料的读者可以看到一份“外交”抄本，它将牛顿的所有印记记录在一页纸上，或者是一个“标准化”版本，它呈现了同一文本的一个更清晰的版本。在我们开始出版这些文本之前，只有一小部分学者看到过这些文本。然而，在AHRC的慷慨支持下，该项目已经向世界各地的观众免费提供了200多万字的这些著作。在这份申请中，牛顿计划计划通过转录和出版目前存放在耶路撒冷、牛津和日内瓦的四份主要文件来完成牛顿宗教著作的在线版本。我们的目标是在2012年底之前完成牛顿神学著作的转录工作。这一成就的重要性体现在这样一个事实上，即一旦完成，它们将代表着任何个人所知的最大的“天生的数字”文本。这项任务的完成将使学者和非学术受众能够看到牛顿令人震惊的神学著作的全方位，并将使研究人员能够解决他工作的不同方面是如何相关的这一难题。牛顿的神学工作是否影响了他的科学工作，或者反之亦然？他的神学著作是否与他的炼金术著作有任何关联(现在可以通过印第安纳大学艾萨克·牛顿的化学合成网站在线获得)？还是说它们都是分开的、“分割”的活动？然而，牛顿项目团队已经做出了艰苦的努力，使网站上的文本变得易懂，并尽可能地为非学术受众所理解。易于使用的界面和首页上的“浏览”使普通读者能够品尝到牛顿作品中最令人兴奋的元素，包括从他的私人笔记本中提取的非凡信息。该项目特别感兴趣的是为中小学生和大学生量身定做网站内容。

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.