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On Defining a Jewish Stance toward Newtonianism: Eliakim ben Abraham Hart's Wars of the Lord

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

David Ruderman
David Ruderman
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
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Abstract

The article studies a small Hebrew book called “The Wars of God” composed by an Anglo-Jewish jeweler who lived in London at the end of the eighteenth century. The book is interesting in further documenting the Jewish response to Newtonianism, that amalgam of scientific, political, and religious ideas that pervaded the culture of England and the Continent throughout the century. Hart, while presenting Newton in a favorable light, departs from other Jewish Newtonians in voicing certain reservations about Newton's alleged religious orthodoxy, specifically his fear that the force of gravitation might be explained independent of God's divine providence. The key to understanding Hart's unique stance is his reliance on two eighteenth-century Christian theologians: William Whiston and Robert Greene, particularly the latter. In staking out this position, Hart also endorsed the theological position of his more well known Jewish colleague David Levi, the publisher of his Hebrew text. Both men reveal together the capacity of Jewish thinkers to absorb the dominant trends of thinking by the majority culture while defending honestly and defiantly the integrity of their religious faith and community.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , Winter 1997 , pp. 677 - 691
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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