THE JEFFERSON BIBLE
The Life And Morals Of Jesus Of Nazareth
by Dr. Lawrence Wilson
© April 2024, LD Wilson Consultants, Inc.
All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.
CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. What Is In The Jefferson Bible?
III. Criticism
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I. INTRODUCTION
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was not just one of the writers of the American Declaration Of Independence. He also helped America get going in many other ways.
One of the things he did is that late in his life he bought several Bibles, written in four languages. He cut them up and pasted sections of them together to give what he thought was a better understanding of the morality of the Bible. The result he called The Jefferson Bible – The Life And Morality Of Jesus Of Nazareth.
II. WHAT IS IN THE JEFFERSON BIBLE?
Jefferson believed that Jesus was, most of all, a superb teacher. He also thought that the moral system of the Bible that Jesus taught is the greatest moral system ever devised.
On the other hand, Jefferson believed that parts of the Bible had been altered or “embellished”. This is what led him to cut and paste together what he considered the true teachings of the Bible.
As an aside, I am told that Jesus was given access to the ancient library at Alexandria that contains the true history of the earth. Many people think that library was destroyed, but I am told it still exists today.
The Jefferson Bible contains passages from all four of the major gospels of the New Testament – Luke, Mark, Matthew and John. Most of it is in English. However, he occasionally included a passage from the Bible in the Greek, Latin or French language because he thought it expressed an idea better.
Ideas and stories he omitted tended to be supernatural or superstitious stories. He believed they were not needed to understand the morality of the Bible, and they might have been added to it later. For example, missing are the miracle of turning water into wine and the miracle of feeding the multitudes with one loaf of bread.
III. CRITICISM
Some people think that chopping up a Bible with a pair of scissors and then gluing it back together again was a terrible thing to do. However, Jefferson was an unusual man.
He did not share his Bible with many people, although he sent copies to his two daughters. He told someone he would read it for half an hour or longer every night before he went to sleep.
The Jefferson Bible was lost for many years. When it was found around the year 1900, the US Government Printing Office printed up 9000 copies and gave them to all new US Senators and Congressmen until they ran out of copies around 1950.
For details, read The Jefferson Bible, Smithsonian Edition, Washington DC, 2011 OR you can read it online, preserved by Google, at: https://uuhouston.org/files/The_Jefferson_Bible.pdf
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