English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

It is known that Sir Isaac Newton suggested a date for the Passion of Christin the posthumously published "Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel andthe Apocalypse of St. John" (1733). What was not known is that the firstattempts to find that date were made during the early period of his life. TheJewish National and University Library in Jerusalem contains two undated draftsin Latin under the same title, "Rules for the Determination of Easter", groupedas Yahuda MS 24E. The earlier draft contains multiple references to thevirtually forgotten "De Annis Christi" (1649), written by Villum Lange, the17th century Danish astronomer and theologian, who might have been Newton'sfirst mentor on the Jewish calendar tradition. The second draft shows not onlyNewton's close acquaintance with Maimonides' theory of first lunar visibility,but also his attempt to simplify the latter's criteria by introducingdifferent, more practical parameters. These "astronomical exercises", announcedin a 1673 book, were likely intended to appear as an appendix to NicholasMercator's 1676 book. Both of Yahuda 24E's drafts contain an astronomical tablewith the solar and lunar positions for years 30-37, which Newton used to decideon the year and date of the Passion. The astronomical data comes from either1651 "Harmonicon Coeleste" or 1669 "Astronomia Britannica" by Vincent Wing, asemi-forgotten astronomer of the seventeenth century. This makes Yahuda 24E oneof the earliest of Newton's drafts, likely written in 1669-73 and certainly notlater than 1683/4. A comparison of the two drafts of Yahuda 24E shows that inthe later one, Newton changed his allegiance from St. John's chronology of thePassion to that shown in the synoptic gospels.

Stirring Astronomy into Theology: Sir Isaac Newton on the Date of the Passion of Christ