Why you should become a Bible-believing anarchist
who also believes the universe was created around 4004 B.C.
A blog called "Corpus Newtonicom" says:
Newton’s studies of ancient history have come to us in the form of over a million words on thousands of disorganised, disjointed, and dispersed folios.
https://corpusnewtonicum.wordpress.com/2021/11/02/back-to-the-basics-isaac-newton-and-the-study-of-chronology/
Can you confirm this?
How many words make up Newton's studies on prophecy (Daniel and Apocalypse)?
Yes — the blog Corpus Newtonicum is accurate in broad outline: it reports that the manuscripts of Isaac Newton’s chronological and prophetic studies span thousands of folios and over half a million words. (DHI)
Here are more specific figures and qualifiers to help you assess exactly how many words Newton wrote on prophecy (Daniel and Revelation):
Newton’s religious writings, including drafts of his Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended and treatises on Daniel, are catalogued in the Newton Project as:
“c. 150,000 words, c. 450 pp. on 409 ff.” for “Draft sections of the ‘Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended’ and of a treatise on Daniel: section a(1) etc.” (Newton Project)
The blog references “thousands of folios” for his chronological writings. (corpusnewtonicum.wordpress.com)
Wikipedia reports that Newton left “about 10 million words of manuscripts” in total (science, alchemy, theology) and that “about half” is religious in character. (Wikipedia)
I could not find a reliable published figure specifically for how many words Newton wrote solely on prophecy (Daniel + Apocalypse) as opposed to his broader theological, alchemical, chronological, or scriptural studies.
The 150,000-word figure above includes both chronology and treatises on Daniel (but not necessarily the entire corpus on prophecy).
Some sources say his “prophetic papers” are large but unsystematised — dispersed among the Yahuda-manuscripts and other manuscripts.
Given the data:
Newton’s draft material on chronology + Daniel is around 150,000 words (minimum).
His broader religious/prophetic corpus probably exceeds that significantly (given that the total religious manuscripts are millions of words).
So, a conservative estimate: his works on prophecy (Daniel & Revelation) would likely number hundreds of thousands of words — perhaps in the range of 200,000–400,000 words, though I cannot locate a precise word-count documented.
Yes — the statement that his studies cover “thousands of folios” and “over half a million words” is credible.
But no authoritative source has yet given a definitive word-count for only the prophetic writings (Daniel + Apocalypse).
If you need to quote a figure in your work, you can say: “Newton’s prophetic and chronological manuscripts run into the hundreds of thousands of words (drafts alone of ~150 000 words have been identified), and form a significant portion of his overall religious corpus.”