Leighton Library has 1611 edition of "A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John" by John Napier
Added at 15:46 on 02 September 2024
#OnThisDay 2 September 1796 a borrower at Dunblane's historic Leighton Library, Reverend Mr Michael Gilfillan (Secession Burgher minister of Dunblane, 1768-1816) borrowed the Leighton Library's 1611 edition of "A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John" by celebrated Scottish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (best known as discoverer of logarithms, and after whom Edinburgh Napier University is named) John Napier. Napier had regarded this as his most important work and in which he used mathematical analysis of the Book of Revelation to attempt to predict the date of the Apocalypse. Napier had had an interest in the Book of Revelation, from his student days at St Salvator's College, St Andrews. It was written in English, unlike his other publications, in order to reach the widest audience and so that, according to Napier, "the simple of this island may be instructed". Napier identified events in chronological order which he believed were parallels to events described in the Book of Revelation believing that Revelation's structure implied that the prophecies would be fulfilled incrementally.In this work Napier dated the seventh trumpet to 1541, and predicted the end of the world would occur in either 1688 or 1700. Napier did not believe that people could know the true date of the Apocalypse, but claimed that since the Bible contained so many clues about the end, God wanted the Church to know when the end was coming. A new edition of the English original of 1593 was called for in 1611 (which is the version the Leighton Library has), when it was revised and corrected by the author, and enlarged by the addition of "With a resolution of certain doubts, moved by some well affected brethren".If you'd like to explore what other books were borrowed on this day in Dunblane's historic Leighton Library then you can search the "Books and Borrowing: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers, 1750-1830" website database accessible from the Leighton Library website https://www.leightonlibrary.org.uk/books-and-borrowing-1750-1830