Newton: The Dark Heretic

Newton: The Dark Heretic

Science  -   50 Comments
7.84
12345678910
Ratings: 7.84/10 from 37 users.

Newton: The Dark HereticA BBC documentary uncovers, for the first time, the original manuscript where Newton forecast the date of the end of the world. Newton, the father of modern mathematics, dedicated a large part of his life to a quest to decode the Bible which he believed to be the word of God. For over 50 years, he studied the Bible trying to unravel God's secret laws of the Universe.

He was fanatical in his quest to discover the date for the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world. Scholars have spent years trying to unravel Newton's writings on the Book of Revelation to establish when he thought the apocalypse was coming. For the first time, Newton: The Dark Heretic reveals the date he forecast is within many people's lifetimes - 2060.

The BBC was given rare access to Newton's original manuscripts in the Hebrew National Library in Jerusalem. Buried in his papers, Dr Stephen Snobelen, from the University of King's College in Nova Scotia, found the original document where Newton had written down his prediction. In 2060, Newton believed the dramatic events forecast in the apocalyptic Book of Revelation would occur: massive plagues and fires; the terrible battle of Armageddon between good and evil and the destruction and eternal damnation of the wicked.

Producer Malcolm Neaum says: "Newton prayed daily for the end of the world which he believed would herald the Second Coming of Christ. This would usher in the 1000 year rule of the Saints and Newton believed he would then take his place as Chief Saint." (Excerpt from bbc.co.uk)

More great documentaries

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

50 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Charlie
Charlie
3 years ago

Newton didn't think the world would end in 2060, but rather said the world would end no sooner than 2060. He also didn't try to accurately predict the end of the world saying, "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." This documentary isn't the first to find out that he predicted the end of the world to be 2060 like it claims to be, and is wrong in saying that he thought 2060 was the exact date of the end of the world.

southerner
southerner
6 years ago

It' a wait and see what happens next.

southerner
southerner
6 years ago

Before 2060 the world will destroy itself.....wars and rumors of wars.....look at the present state the world is in now......God is in control everything....and American must put they faith in God. In God We Trust.....American is moving away from God with the decease in church attendance, movies and tv shows, lap tops and movies with witchcraft and demons, America is in sad shape.....

mysterioso
mysterioso
6 years ago

Oh, and Newton didn't believe jesus was god. He and many others argued, (to themselves), that, that concept went against the first commandment. Only one god.

mysterioso
mysterioso
6 years ago

There have been thousands of predictions of the end of the world and the "second coming of christ". None have materialized. Sol, (Paul), believed and preached that jesus would arrive again in his lifetime. Religion is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, voodoo, heebee jeebee, fairy tales and stories to scare little children. All religion and deity beliefs are political in their concept......simply to control populations, large or small.

Here's my bible........."BE NICE".

Sauban Physicist
Sauban Physicist
7 years ago

My Sincere Respect Goes toward you Always.....

Mitch
Mitch
7 years ago

Only a fool will disregard the existence of cosmic forces greater then ourselves. You only believe what you see? Do you not see how fragile life is. Do you not see that the crushing void of black above us that could fall at any moment? Do you not see that all life hangs as by string over darkness? It does not take faith to understand that each moment is granted. That the logical chances of our fragile being happening by chance is unlikely at best. The entire universe is coded with a system of perfect numbers only to be understood through human reference. Is it not? The number system is a language. Who is speaking the language? Be honest with yourself.

Pysmythe
Pysmythe
9 years ago

For some years this business of Newton's bizarre fascination with occult and religious matters baffled me, until a bright day when it at last dawned on me what was probably the major impetus of it for him. Isaac Newton, clearly, knew precisely what he was, of course,,, that his intellectual value was considerably beyond that of his peers and predecessors. And so, while I could be entirely wrong, I suspect that on some level he felt that ONLY he, and no other, would be capable of ferreting out any truly useful information that all those in the centuries before had failed to uncover, should it so happen to be hidden there, and maybe with even a kind of megalomania, if you will, which is not, after all, a trait uncommon to people of very high genius. And if we can say that he failed at this particular task, I think we can also safely say that the lessons he learned from it greatly helped to inform him of the much more important work that lay ahead of him, by helping him to keep his focus on experiments of which the results could be repeated by anyone, in any age. So, the point being, perhaps we shouldn't fault him too much for venturing into territory that would be viewed now as complete quackery.

Pysmythe
Pysmythe
9 years ago

Had a sudden hankering tonight for a good doc on jolly ol' completely lovable Isaac N. for a change. Reckon I'll go ahead and jump right in and see just what kind of lamentable heresies one of history's very greatest geniuses simply had to have been up to whilst in his time apart from all that serious stuff... And, yes, when I say "serious stuff," I'm already somewhat aware with what fervor he regarded what has come to be known as his fruitless sidetracks into scientific dead-ends, and by which I mean that they were at least serious to him. Go right ahead and fault the man for it, if you wish, but at least it was indicative of an insatiable curiosity still rarely found to this day.

sonya
sonya
9 years ago

Absolutely! Newton was a God fearing, reverencing man! No one can CREATE a living single cell. Therefore there must be a Creator! Theorists/Physicists like my husband know this & this is how our origin is defined. It is so simple-so don't believe the lies that you came from a monkey! You are perfectly made and in a manner of SPLENDOR from the Almighty!

Big boss
Big boss
9 years ago

Only a fool will say there is no God. If truely life began after the big bang or as some argue from evolution. What happened before the big bang? what started the first organism which began to evolve? Its so amazing how we try so hard to argue that there is no God because we truely know our inherent and secret evil lifes and since we dont want any moral accountability we have to indulge into illusions and try to justify our immoral acts internally that nobody will hold us accountable when we eventually die. Strangely enough all the so called masters of science, people whose lifes work and dedication formed the backbone of science upon which we are benefitting through this forum today in their later years openly acknowledged secretly and openly the existence of God. Stop wasting your precious time on earth holding God responsible for your woes and troubles and try to discover, invent and create better ways to make the world happy place.There is God to whom I believe . if I die and I don't see him, I have nothing to loose but if I die and see him then I sorry all those who spent thier time insulting and abusing him.

SIKR
SIKR
11 years ago

There is no God.There is an Idea of God (gods).

BTW, Newton also believed in alchemistry and was vigorously trying to convert Mercury into Gold in chemical reaction (which we know now is not the way to go about it). This does not diminish the greatness of his achievements.

Shaun Martin
Shaun Martin
11 years ago

Wow, as a Jehovah's Witness I can say that if Isaac Newton were alive today his beliefs would make him one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Apart from the 2060 date that is.

Ricky Laming
Ricky Laming
11 years ago

thats comical,the second coming of christ!like a movie...(monotone voice)JESUS partII hes back and this time he means buissness...!lmmfao!!!yeah ya know were bout overdue for him to die for some more sins!...and of course ask him about the mysterious dinosaur fossils that are proven to date back BEFORE god created man/earth/universe!?!why are peoples minds stuck on this notion of god or no god depending on if he caters to every insignificant thing its like taking extreme measures not to kill the bacteria on your hands by washing them,tunnelvision thinking isnt what you want to do. god created the earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th right?-WRONG what was a day before earth..a jupitor day perhaps???

Don Orcutt
Don Orcutt
11 years ago

Thanks for the spoilers...no comments on whether it was worth watching,just what was watched.

haloween
haloween
11 years ago

He may not have been always right but at least he thought for himself and studied and made an effort to learn, more than what most do today, it seems most can't think for theirselves about anything just follow and repeat like parrots.

bburke
bburke
11 years ago

If he was so sure the world would end in 2060, why did he bother praying about it at all?

harry lippy
harry lippy
12 years ago

I wouldn't call Newton "THE" father of modern mathematics. He was one of many. In fact, Euler should probably get (much) more credit.

Ian Guidera
Ian Guidera
12 years ago

ah religion man's inevitable mistake, lets be honest if religion didn't exist we'd only invent it, live and let live

GinnyMD
GinnyMD
12 years ago

I'm amazed how close Sir Isaac Newton 's theological papers are to the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, who are the only Christian religion I know of who teach and prove from scripture that the Trinity is not scriptural, that we are not immortal, we depend on a resurrection, made possible by Jesus ' own death and resurrection , that we are living deep in the time of the end, soon to face the greatest tribulation ever and God's Kingdom with Jesus as King, is soon to take over the affairs of our Earth. See Dead Sea Scrolls, recently digitised by Google, Book of Isaiah Chapter 11.1-9, and Chapter 35.

I feel, that the way the above introductory article was written, could be misleading, for example; "He was fanatical in his quest to discover the date for the second coming of Christ and the end of the world"

Most followers of Christ and serious students of the bible are extremely anxious to know when these things will be and what would be the sign of Christ's presence and the conclusion of this wicked system of things.

I read from a book written about 1920 , that the reason Sir Isaac mentioned a well into the future date for the Apocalypse was some in his day were making predictions that didn't happen and he feared that people would be turned off reading Gods Word altogether.

He knew from his careful study of the scriptures that the preaching and teaching of the Kingdom work needed to be done on a global scale first , (Matthew 24.14 )(Acts 1.8) and that wouldn't happen under the religious climate of his day. He saw no organization able to carry it out.

I believe from his notes, that he discerned from scripture, we are not all going to Heaven ( only 144 ,000, who are bought from earth to rule with Jesus in the Heavenly Kingdom 2nd Timothy 4.18, over obedient mankind on earth ) ( Revelation 5.2, 9-10, & Rev. 14.1-3) Hell, purgatory or limbo .

But the righteous would possess the earth and live forever upon it. Just as their Creator Jehovah purposed. (Psalm 37.29)having exquisite delight in the abundance of peace. (Psalm 37.11) So earth not to be destroyed, just wicked ungodly mankind.

Cas
Cas
12 years ago

I read the works of Richard Dawkins, then watch a documentary like this; the man of Newtonian Physics....so logical, so mathematical....you could easily believe that he is far removed from Religion, but then one word comes to your mind; CONTEXT. There was so much undiscovered in his age, so not hard to imagine that religion still manifested in the human mind. This makes you finally realize the bigger picture: Religion is like any scientific theory. Since we had a brain complex/big enough to be self aware, we sought a way to define ourselves....it is instinctive that we place ourselves in higher position in relative to anything that is different than us (racism sounds familiar?).... MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS...UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE JUST A COMPLEX MOLECULE/VIRUS THAT SELF REPLICATED ITSELF TO A COMPLEXITY THAT MADE ITSELF AWARE OF ITSELF.

richoracle
richoracle
12 years ago

Sides of a great man. good thing he was smart enough to acknowledge that there is God.

clay dawson
clay dawson
12 years ago

A shame that Newton spent so much energy on this fruitless endeavor. Herein we again see the effect of centuries of clerically-conditioned thinking on a rational man--attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable; much like Rene Descartes and other early philosophers.

Jonathen Hayek
Jonathen Hayek
13 years ago

@mrcomentator what is the "POINT" of etc,,, get it??euclidean geometry contains points and lines etc...

Dave
Dave
13 years ago

Never realized just how arrogant and full of pride sir Issac had become...Chief Saint? Well excuse me sir Imfulofmyself!

mrcomentator
mrcomentator
13 years ago

can you explain the joke?

Epicurean_Logic
Epicurean_Logic
13 years ago

Only me again. I just wanted to add that if you found the previous joke funny, you are probably a mathematition at heart, so study more maths and use the above link.

zahid
zahid
14 years ago

myth was over newtons head....