A beautiful quote by Sir Isaac Newton. Has nothing to do with literalism. ------------- What of this educated man then?
William Whiston was a brilliant Cambridge University colleague of Sir Isaac Newton. If you consult the English edition of the writings of the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, you will likely be reading the translation made by Whiston in 1736. Although other translations exist, his scholarly rendering, along with his notes and essays, has yet to be surpassed and is still in print. Many consider this work to be the pinnacle of Whiston’s achievements. Not to be overlooked, however, is the Primitive New Testament, Whiston’s translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures. It was published in 1745, in his 78th year. Whiston translated the four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles from the Codex Bezae, Paul’s letters from the Clermont Codex, and the remaining portion, including Revelation, from the Alexandrine Manuscript. He carefully omitted the spurious part of 1 John 5:7. Whiston chose these three ancient Greek sources as the best available at the time. Love for the Bible was the apparent motivation for what Whiston did. Prevalent in his day was deism, the teaching that reason alone is an adequate basis for belief in God. According to the book William Whiston—Honest Newtonian, he strongly upheld “the traditionalist view that the Bible is the one infallible source of ancient history.” The term “Newtonian” here is a reference to Isaac Newton, best known for his Principia, in which he expounded the law of universal gravitation. Newton’s thinking had a profound effect on William Whiston.
