World libraries: Israeli National library digitized theological texts of Sir Isaac Newton

Israeli National library has launched a digital collection of Sir Isaac Newton's theological works online.

He's considered to be one of the greatest scientists of all time. But Sir Isaac Newton was also an influential theologian who applied a scientific approach to the study of scripture, Hebrew and Jewish mysticism.

Now Israel's national library, an unlikely owner of a vast trove of Newton's writings, has digitised his theological collection – some 7,500 pages in Newton's own handwriting – and put it online.

The papers cover topics such as interpretations of the Bible, theology, the history of ancient cultures, the Tabernacle and the Jewish Temple.

How his massive collection of work ended up in the Jewish state seems mystical in its own right. Years after Newton's death in 1727, his descendants gave his scientific manuscripts to his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. But the university rejected his non-scientific papers, so the family auctioned them off at Sotheby's in London in 1936. As chance would have it, London's other main auction house – Christie's – was selling a collection of Impressionist art the same day that attracted far more attention. Only two serious bidders arrived for the Newton collection that day. The first was renowned British economist John Maynard Keynes, who bought Newton's alchemy manuscripts. The second was Abraham Shalom Yahuda – a Jewish Oriental Studies scholar – who got Newton's theological writings. Yahuda's collection was bequeathed to the National Library of Israel in 1969, years after his death. In 2007, the library exhibited the papers for the first time and now they are available for all to see online.

 The collection contains pages after pages of Newton's flowing cursive handwriting on fraying parchment in 18th-century English

 Two print versions in modern typeface are also available for easier reading: A "diplomatic" one that includes changes and corrections Newton made in the original manuscript, and a "clean" version that incorporates the corrections.

All of the papers are linked to the Newton Project, which is hosted by the University of Sussex and includes other collections of Newton's writings.