Two myths persist about Isaac Newton. First – the gravitational apple. Secondly – that he was a mathematician and a physicist.
In truth, the majority of this tortured soul’s inner life was spent in frenetic research into anything else but physics and mathematics. His interest in them was essentially for the information they ultimately failed to provide. Like many thinkers, from the first Greek philosopher to Stephen Hawking, he was convinced that the obvious harmony and order in the world proved that there must be one unifying theory that explained everything.
Why Did Newton Study Physics?
Newton found such incredibly methodical beauty in mathematics and physics that he was certain that they would reveal this hidden pattern, or that perhaps the physical world itself held the key to that ultimate secret. Because of this obsessive search, the major part of his almost tragic existence was spent in secret heretical experiments.
These were in that study which united the mystical with the physical – that sacrilegious profanity – alchemy. He battled to find an inner logic within it. His intellectual persistence was exhausted in this hopeless endeavor – yet he continued to yearn for the single truth that awaited the alchemist – the key to all knowledge; the Philosopher’s Stone; the Elixir of Life.
Newton was certain that Man’s mind must be able to find this single secret. For what else was such a brilliant instrument created? It was Man’s duty to strive to this end – and especially the duty of the most brilliant man of whom Newton knew – Isaac Newton. After all, he was born on 25th December of all days – and with no (or rather a deceased) father (!)
He strained every dendrite to this end. Paradoxically, it was this ambition which fueled his stretching of knowledge beyond previous boundaries. It was this ambition that allowed Newton to think constantly outside the box. Paradoxically, it was this mind-set that rejected religious orthodoxy and yet found religious certainty. He considered the impossible and actually found the truth in an impossible, shocking and scandalous place.
At this point, you may be forgiven for checking the title of this site and wondering why on earth – however obviously intellectually challenged – I am now going on about Newton.
Isaac Newton and Judaism?: An Unusual Witness
OK, Isaac had a sort of Jewish name – Issy Neumann perhaps in the old country – but even the Germans could not have found a drop of the Jewish blood in him. (His nose however ist eine little suspicious … )
No, the reason that I dare to mention his name is that Newton’s very ambition to uncover that final single secret led him to the ultimately outrageous conclusion. His genius searched and found an answer that was so grotesque, so monstrous that it was carefully hidden during his own lifetime and then literally locked in a box for over 200 years. He became a clandestine follower of that most despicable, abhorrent and rejected of heresies.
Far worse than black magic and human sacrifice; far, far worse than satanic vampire cults, Newton was, shockingly, appallingly and disgustingly, besotted with – yes, sorry, another terrible revelation – Talmudic Judaism. Blame the Jews. I can only apologize, retrospectively. One the greatest minds of whom we know was led by his utterly, utterly logical brilliance to Talmudics and a Judaic monotheism of the school of Maimonides.
Yes, yes, you needn’t shout. I can hear you. ‘Oh man, are you insane. What an idea! You guys have fried brains. From what sort of mutation did you evolve??’
Uncovering a Jewish Newton?: An Economist’s Disclosure
Well, what about the man who discovered this? John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, CB, FBA was one of the most influential economists of the last century. In 1936 he purchased and personally decoded Newton’s papers – hidden for over two centuries. And no, he was very definitely not Jewish. A British aristocrat, he must be worth believing. In his lecture ‘Newton, the Man’, he concludes:
‘Very early in life Newton abandoned orthodox belief in the Trinity…. He was rather a Judaic monotheist of the school of Maimonides. Newton arrived at this conclusion, not on so-to-speak rational or skeptical grounds. It was entirely on the interpretation of ancient authority. He was persuaded that the revealed documents give no support to the Trinitarian doctrines which were due to late falsifications.…’
This was a posthumous lecture to The Royal Society of London – July 1946 – delivered by his brother Geoffrey Keynes, shortly after Keynes’ death.
And Newton, a ‘Judaic monotheist’, is the idol of today’s scientific world and of the atheist mutants who believe blindly in Scientism. He is quoted by so many. Just think of that. They use a Judas – a perfectly sane non-Jew who actually intellectually adopted, of all things, Maimonides’ brilliant interpretation of the world, its origins and purpose: a man who examined and averred to the truth of Judaism. Aagh!
Judaism’s Independence from Newton’s Endorsement
First, let me be blunt. Judaism most certainly does not need the support of even Isaac Newton. However, I am aware that this strange endorsement will validate for many readers, the logic and relevance of our argument. Further, Newton certainly did not convert, but even had he wished to this would have been impossible as Jews were banned from England from 1290 until 1648, and we did not suddenly become the flavor of the year even then. From the practical point of view, it would have been simply suicidal to have been involved in any way. Lord George Gordon caused enough trouble when he secretly converted in 1787, but that is a very different story.
Newton’s Struggle With Christianity
Although Newton lived in a world saturated with an unblinking faith in Christianity, he scrutinised everything absolutely from first principles. That super-critical approach supported the concept of the Deity, but stumbled when confronted with Christianity – a religion that claimed to be beyond the application of logic. He applied his scorchingly-rational mind to the single accepted religion of his day – only to find that it failed him.
Remember, that this man, in solitary isolation, explained the planetary system, extrapolated gravity’s existence without being able to measure it, created the 3 basic Laws of Motion, invented calculus – which was the cornerstone of nearly all maths until quantum – and created the most brilliant mathematical and scientific works ever produced. Yet, he wrote more on his abhorrent religious ideas and alchemy than on all the above minor, ancillary pursuits – such as mathematics, optics, physics, etc. etc. – together.
Isaac Newton’s Main Interest in Judaism
And, centrally for us, that mind that stripped away every irrelevancy and illogicality – that mind that discovered and proved so much – that mind that rejected his own religious tradition – that same mind read, considered and accepted Judaism and, vitally, Sinai. He accepted that Sinai proves an unchallengeable link through the generations.
Newton’s thousands of notes on this are available for inspection – in his own hand. And he was absolutely not psychologically trapped into a blind belief in Deism. He was no simple, superstitious nutcase – for he was surrounded by proto-Enlightenment atheistic revolutionary ideas, as we shall learn below. The possibility of there being no Creator was being openly discussed in the coffee houses.
This meant rejecting both his heritage and that which was fashionable. It meant threatening his status and employment. This meant endangering his life. Had his writings been discovered, he would have been ruined and possibly executed. This is why all this was not only hidden, it was written in varying complex codes and most was burnt by Newton just before his death.
One might suggest that the destroyed writings contained the most extreme religious conclusions he had reached – too dangerous to leave for others to find. His body or even his family would have suffered for his heresy.
After his demise, his family knew that his surviving non-scientific writings would destroy his image as ‘the Sage and Monarch of the Age of Reason’, so they bundled many thousands of pages into a metal chest, locked it and hid it for 210 years from 1727 to 1936.
Isaac Newton: The Untainted Witness
Newton recognised that such great intellects can never view religion objectively because it condemns their own personal behaviour. They may be our greatest minds but they are certainly not our greatest men. We cannot judge them – they had both nature and nurture against them – but we can note the lack of basic self-control which marked their pathetic sojourn in this world. If we turn to some ‘great men’ such as the self-confessed animals in the arts, like Goethe, Wagner or Puccini, we must simply accept that many do not evolve beyond the Neolithic. Nothing new in that.
So we must search for a great mind that has an impartial and untainted view and it is Newton in whom we can find an unorthodox genius who was a religious rebel and had scrutinized the subject exhaustively and yet remained ‘moral’. This is why we can turn to him, a refreshing exception in an endless sewer. And one has the very clear impression that even if he were a ‘sinner’, he was an objective sinner who would not allow this to cloud his logic.
Further, he is not trammeled by any illogical ‘faith’ and had no orthodoxy to protect. He was impartial. There have been countless men of every faith who were geniuses – but their very faith required the suspension of disbelief and logic when it came to scrutinizing that faith. This is often described as a ‘sacrifice’ by such men. They relinquish their logic to their god – as a sign of their faithfulness.
Isaac Newton And The Jews: Cold Logicians
Neither the Jews nor Newton believed in such sacrifices – because they are simply not necessary. Newton had a belief based on Sinai, and nothing else.
His character was indeed contrary – but not his intellect. Whilst, for much of his life, he was the absolute paradigm of the unsociable, hermit-genius, he amazingly also proved himself as hard, practical and wily as the next man. He was no helpless sop and he could turn his brain onto the outside world proving himself to be supremely adroit.
For example, he was an honest soul and as he did not accept Christianity in its 17th century form, he could not profess to its truth. Yet, one had to take holy orders – to be one who professes – a professor – in order to hold the university positions he was given. Deftly, he ducked this necessity, obtaining a royal release, and, un-ordained, kept his posts and kept in favour with those who mattered.
Isaac Newton: The Alchemist in-Chief
Furthermore, in his last twenty years, he, quite astonishingly, ran the Royal Mint with enormous rigour, clamping down on coinage crime and amassing a fortune from investments. This was ironic as one reason that his private sin, alchemy was so repressed was a fear that its success would debase the coinage – of the Royal Mint that he now ran. Was the arch-alchemist of Europe – having failed to discover the Philosopher’s Stone – expurgating his misdemeanours and sin of practising that fiendish chymistry?
Thus, Newton emerges as a practical, unbiased and honest genius. And this is why he may be used as a litmus paper. He concentrated on a problem unflinchingly until his vast intellect had reached an absolutely irrefutable conclusion. He was, in his brilliance, self-absorbed and had no regard for others’ opinions and certainly did not write to be read, but rather to crystallize his thoughts. Every know fact had to fit in with his final conclusion.
The Ultimate Question That Bothered Newton
He started to delve into alchemy to find the single, ultimate secret of the universe – dubbed by some as ‘the Theory of Everything’. There had to be a single answer to all mankind’s questions. This is a commonly-held belief amongst many of our greatest minds throughout the ages.
This is strange as it is absolutely illogical and subjective. I suppose if you are that clever you presume that you must be able to find every answer. When we come to the astonishingly-modern Book of Job and his insistence on answers – we can examine this further. Thankfully I am thick, not inquisitive and share my IQ with the nematode – according to those who know me best.
Indeed, Newton’s disappointment was almost overwhelming when he realized that most of alchemy’s claims were unable to be proved, for it had been here that he hoped to find that single unifying secret of the physical universe.
Where should he search? Christianity had also failed that test. It lacked evidence and logic.
Isaac Newton’s Belief in Judaism Ignited
However, then he stumbled over the writings of those curious and obdurate arch-deniers of the truth. Once ignited, he could not resist his fascination with Judaism. We can watch him applying his mind and his methods to this new world of possibilities. And, indeed, what actually happened in detail when this ultimately logical and objective mind came head-on with the claims of the Jews?
His interest in the Talmud was as outlandish as it was ridiculously dangerous. Churchmen became Hebraists to counter the ‘evill lyes and mosst sedytious trappes of the Yewes’. This was kosher. However, for an alchemist with dubious religious opinions, it would have been fatal. If he certainly had no ulterior motive for questioning Christianity, he certainly had considerably less incentive for accepting our claims.
And we cannot depict him as being brilliant but naïve. He was not brainwashed into anything. We cannot portray a poor trusting Newton blinded by his upbringing, grasping at some residue of Deism – even if it was from that most odious source – Judaism. He was no superstitious trembling believer – wracked with the sin of his doubts.
Isaac Newton’s Rejection of Atheism
As mentioned, atheism per se was not at all inconceivable in Newton’s age. He was born into the greatest surge of anti-Deism that had ever occurred. As a student, in the 1660s, he mingled in the ubiquitous coffee houses with those loudly discussing this very fashionable topic amongst many other revolutionary concepts.
So, there indeed was Newton – drinking coffee and faced with raucous, energetic arguments about atheism. Why did he not secretly embrace this alternative to orthodoxy? In that pre-natal Age of Reason and Enlightenment, Newton would be very aware of Europe-wide challenges to the concept of any Deity.
Frustrated with the orthodoxy which he had embraced from his earliest youth, why did he not now fling himself into a world controlled only by the laws of nature? Isaac, grasp the atheist’s branch! After all, his was a mind that rejected before it accepted and he had no time for baseless presumptions, superstition or comfortable accepted wisdom. To reject every god that Mankind could invent would provide precisely the blank sheet upon which Newton could inscribe his new truths.
Why on earth did he not reject the Jewish Deity with all the others? The answer is simple. He did reject every god that mankind could invent. But, there was One who could not be invented. This is what stopped him in his tracks.
The Jewish Law That Newton Could Not Deny
When he happened upon Judaism, he hit a brick wall. Sinai. Unlike all atheists, he studied it objectively, with the full power of his genius and realised that it was irrefutable and Newton was great enough to admit this. Faced with the consequences on their own private lives and reputations, few are willing to do this.
For Newton, atheism was impossible in light of the Talmudic Sinai argument.
This is why I tempt fate by awakening the long-sleeping Judaic interests of Newton and drag him into this discussion. His conclusions impact very profoundly on our central argument – the authenticity of the claim of a transmission from Sinai until today.
This subject was made available to the non-Jewish world by Buxtorf in 1660 when he translated into Latin the ‘Book of the Kuzari’, a work we have met before. This long 10th century description of Judaism contrasted to philosophy, Islam and Christianity fascinated Newton because the Sinai Argument appears. This lit a conflagration in his mind and threw his concept of religion into an entirely new arena. He was astonished that blind faith was not needed for Judaism. His deep examination of this entirely new idea is vividly marked literally by the heavily annotated and battle-worn pages of his copy.
How Did Newton Understand The Sinai Argument?
It was not simply that there happened to be copies of the Kuzari, Nachmanides and other translated Jewish texts in Newton’s library. Newton’s innumerable pencil markings show every sign that their owner had wrestled with them. They were worn out copies, covered in comments, underlining and scribblings. One must repeat that all his Hebraica provide ocular proof of being very thoroughly read and re-read.
It is central to our quest simply to ask why Newton – having so thoroughly examined it, mused over it, re-read the pages, written comments, under-scored it and pondered – did not himself reject Sinai and Judaism – as he had rejected possibly all of Christianity. The answer is not that he was simple or prejudiced. The answer is rather that he specifically was neither simple nor prejudiced. He was, after all, Newton.
Historical Context of Hebrew Studies
Initially, in noting the ancient Hebrews, Newton had simply tapped into a fashionable trend in his intellectual world. So anti-Semitic was England, that from 1290 until 1648, Jews were not even meant to tread on its hallowed soil, but, nonetheless, there was an upsurge of interest in a misunderstood Hebraic religion and its people. This was the examination of the curious lores, usages and customs of the Israelite people especially for hints in their texts of the Apocalypse – for his era expected it at any moment. The Civil War, the Black Death, unrest throughout Europe – surely the end was nigh. The final conversion of the Jews to Christianity was meant to be imminent. It would portend the Final Redemption.
Hebrew became the study for those wishing to discover the ultimate secrets. Their mistake was that merely knowing Hebrew was almost useless in understanding even the most elementary of the deep and obscure works they wished to read. These were written by great Talmudists for great Talmudists. The language of our academia is utterly cryptic. I compare it elsewhere to a scientific formula – the words are English – but they are incomprehensible to the lay reader. But in response to the fascination of Newton’s generation, translations in Greek and Latin were increasingly published. Some of these were broadly accurate – as plain translations. However these are by men who were fluent in Hebrew but not the formulas, nor the methodology of our Talmudic world. Thus the essence remained hidden.
Why Hebrew “Experts” Struggle With The Talmud
I am not at all being obscurantist in claiming this. Simply work through one of the sections of the Talmud which I translate and explain in this book. You will immediately appreciate my point – and need a cold compress for your head.
One likely tutor was Isaac Abendana (deceased about 1710) who was in Cambridge in 1662. He was a true academic and, urged on by the Apocalypsians and others in Cambridge, he translated the Mishnah into Latin. He taught Hebraics from about 1663, sold Hebrew manuscripts and books and was to settle in Oxford.
The Jewish Isaac That Tutored Newton
Newton was at Cambridge with Abendana and the two Isaacs may well have studied together. Newton had a heavily-thumbed first edition of Abendana’s ‘Polity of the Jews’ (1706). Now he could discuss the translations which had placed a new world of thought into Newton’s mind – all the mass of confusing Rabbinics, Talmud, Maimonides, Nachmanides, ancient Jewish calendars, measurement and mathematical systems. The Jewish mystical cosmology, algebra, geometry and numerical codes exploded within Newton’s mind. He writes endlessly on the Noahite laws, Kabbalistic concepts of number, the measurements of the Temple and Tabernacle, Maimonidian concepts which were incorporated into Newton’s ultimate work – ‘Principia Mathematica’ – and a host of intricate practices and codes.
On hundreds of closely-written sheets devoted to theology, Newton argues out Maimonides’ school of thought drawn from his own analytical intellectual examination. He states that which the Jews had been burnt for saying for 1650 years. His rejection of the threefold deity was because, as we had insisted for a mere 1650 years, the Bible does specifically rule this out at every opportunity! He had rejected the divinity of their messiah for similar reasons. Also, he found no evidence for any part of the New Testament – except that it had been set down. He soon began to develop a sneaking suspicion that perhaps those Jews were on to something.
Thus, in conclusion, we have seen that he eagerly absorbed all he could from his strange, bearded friends in their Jewish gabardine. Since he was searching for hidden codes and secrets, and had no real knowledge of the original texts, he did however perpetuate the misguided aims of his peers. He combed the later prophetic books for apocalyptic answers, references to the Knights Templar et al and masses of other ridiculous mythology.
Keynes’ Revelations and Final Thoughts
As mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, Maynard Keynes’ painstaking examination of Newton’s secret writings locked in that Cambridge Chest revealed much that could not have even been guessed. We have Keynes’ conclusions. Even in 1727, a clergy man, Bishop Horsley, is said to have glanced at the top layer of hand written pages and instantly ordered it to be locked and hidden for ever. Imagine what Newton must have had burnt just prior to his death.
The Best Proof of All: The Antisemite’s Disclosure
Remember, Keynes was an openly anti-Semitic, Christian aristocrat. Keynes’s less favorable views, including his eugenicist beliefs and antisemitism, are now revealed by modern research. Yet, astonishingly, the words of Keynes’ lecture, read post-mortem by his brother in July 1946, at a celebration of Newton are clear and unambiguous (and he was not working for Mossad).
‘His peculiar gift was the power of holding continuously in his mind a purely mental problem until he had seen straight through it. I fancy his pre-eminence is due to his muscles of intuition being the strongest and most enduring with which a man has ever been gifted…
‘Very early in life Newton abandoned orthodox belief in the Trinity…. He was rather a Judaic monotheist of the school of Maimonides. Arriving at this conclusion, not on so-to-speak rational or skeptical grounds, but entirely on the interpretation of ancient authority. He was persuaded that the revealed documents give no support to the Trinitarian doctrines which were due to late falsifications.…’
Did Newton Really Practice Judaism? Almost!
There is no question that Isaac Newton, the ‘Judaic monotheist of the school of Maimonides’, had examined and validated the Sinai argument. I mention him, I repeat, not because we need him, but because in the context of this site, his word bears weight. It will be far more persuasive with you than my puny efforts. He was utterly brilliant, worked from first principles and in every field rejected prior investigation unless he had tested it. He had no private axe to grind in self-justification and was not at any disadvantage in lacking evidence.
Furthermore it was proven by an anti-Semite – beat that!!
Just remember: Newton came to Sinai.
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