Isaac Newton's Temple of Solomon and his Reconstruction of Sacred Architecture
Isaac Newton’s unpublished manuscripts reveal that for over fifty years he had an interest in the Temple of Solomon. He wrote on the Temple’s meaning, the rituals associated with it, and even recreated the architectural plan. In an unpublished manuscript
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Tessa Morrison
Isaac Newton’s Temple of Solomon and his Reconstruction of Sacred Architecture
Tessa Morrison The University of Newcastle Callaghan The School of Architecture and Built Environment Newcastle, Callaghan Australia [email protected]
ISBN 978-3-0348-0045-7 e-ISBN 978-3-0348-0046-4 DOI 10.1007/978-3-0348-0046-4 # Springer Basel AG 2011 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in data banks. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained. Printed on acid-free paper Springer Basel AG is part of Springer ScienceþBusiness Media (www.springer.com)
Foreword
Architecture is certainly not a field that comes to mind when we think of Isaac Newton. This is precisely why this present volume is so important. It not only shows us a little known side of one of the greatest minds in human history, but also helps us understand entire areas of inquiry that have fallen into oblivion, those of “chronology” and “ancient wisdom”. Because we are all intelligent beings, intelligence itself is of interest to us. Genius, which is superlative intelligence, is greatly interesting to us. But because genius is not always accessible, myth takes over. This is as true for historical figures like Newton and Leonardo da Vinci, as it is for more recent geniuses, like Einstein: the scientist is obscured by the myth. In the case of Leonardo, the myth grew to such proportions that the tendency is to credit Leonardo with the invention or prototype for almost everything, in spite of the fact that in many cases careful study of his notebooks demonstrates that, even when he correctly observed the phenomena he was studying, he drew the wrong conclusions, or when, in the attempt to build his “inventions”, they are discovered to have irremediable flaws. The case of Newton is just the opposite. Newton’s myth was forged by neglecting or denying the activities that actually occupied the largest part of his intellectual life. Recent interventions have aimed at restoring to Newton the parts of this work that earlier periods had deemed unimportant or even scandalous. This present work falls in that category. Uncovering and making accessible the work of scientists and scholars of the past is much more difficult than it might appear to be. Newton himself knew that: had these challenges been easy, he needn’t have spent a lifetime working on ideas surrounding chronology, ancient wisdom or Solomon’s Temple. One of the obstacles is language. In order to interpret the biblical passages he was interested in, Newton had to grapple with the Hebrew. But for many of today’s scholars, a Latin text presents equal difficulties. Latin was, of course, the language of scholars. Not having had an education of the kind reserved to young noblemen, Leonardo da Vinci found that many mathematical and scie
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