Apocalyptic literature of the early 18th century

... there were several books written in the early 1700s that speculated on the biblical Apocalypse. However, the specifics of these books can be quite diverse, as they were influenced by the authors’ individual interpretations of biblical texts.

One notable example is Isaac Newton’s observations on the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John. In his book, published posthumously in 1733, Newton expressed his belief that the Apocalypse could be deciphered in the same way as the natural world and that its events, including the return of Christ, were things that could be predicted.

Another example is William Whiston, an English theologian and mathematician who succeeded Newton as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Whiston wrote “A New Theory of the Earth” in 1696, in which he predicted the world would end in 2300 AD, based on his interpretation of the Bible.

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excerpt from The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

 David was aware of a change in the room as soon as he began to fill the empty
spaces on the shelves, the newer books looking and sounding uneasy beside
these other works from the past. Their appearance was intimidating, and they
spoke to David in dusty, rumbling tones. The older books were bound in calfskin
and leather, and some of them contained knowledge that had long been
forgotten, or that was found to be incorrect as science and the process of
discovery uncovered new truths. The books that held this old knowledge had
never come to terms with this relegation of their worth. They were now lower
than stories, for stories were intended, at some level, to be made up and untrue,
but these other books had been born for greater things. Men and women had
worked hard on their creation, filling them with the sum total of all that they
knew and all that they believed about the world. That they were misguided, and
the assumptions they made were now largely worthless, was almost impossible
for the books to bear.

A great book (possibly by Isaac Newton) that claimed that the end of the world, based on a close
examination of the Bible, would occur in 1783, had largely retreated into
madness, refusing to believe that the present date was any later than 1782, for to
do so would be to admit that its contents were wrong and that its existence
therefore had no purpose beyond that of a mere curiosity. A slim work on the
current civilizations of Mars, written by a man (Percival Lowell) with a large telescope and an eye
that discerned the paths of canals where no canals had ever flowed, gabbled
constantly about how the Martians had retreated below the surface and were now
building great engines in secret. 

[The Book of Lost Things, Connolly].

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