Museum Restores Jefferson's Unique Bible

By Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service

(RNS) A Smithsonian museum is restoring the "Jefferson Bible," a unique volume the third president cut and pasted himself -- omitting lots of theology -- from portions of the New Testament.

Thomas Jefferson assembled the book in 1820 when he retired after two terms as president. "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" resembles a scrapbook that puts Jesus' life in chronological order. Its 86 pages include clipped passages from the Gospels in English, Latin,
French and Greek.

It includes the Crucifixion and burial of Jesus but not the Resurrection and leaves out the miracles attributed to him.

Conservators at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will repair the fragile book's torn pages. It is scheduled to be displayed starting in mid-November for four months. The project, paid for by private and federal funds, will cost about $225,000.

"The volume provides an exclusive insight to the religious and moral beliefs of the writer of the Declaration of Independence, the nation's third president, as well as his position as an important thinker in the Age of Enlightenment," said Brent D. Glass, director of the museum, in a Thursday (March 10) announcement about the project.

The Smithsonian's librarian purchased the book from Jefferson's great-granddaughter for $400 in 1895, said museum spokeswoman Valeska Hilbig.

"He never sold it because he didn't want it to be public," Harry R. Rubenstein, the chair of the museum's political history division, told The Washington Post. "He wanted to avoid bringing back the arguments that he was anti-Christian."

Comments

[Thisboy]

11:11 PM on 04/02/2011

There's a display the Right would love to have kept in somone's private collection.

[hagagaga]

08:20 AM on 03/21/2011

Don't forget, this man founded our great Confederate States of America on good, Christian principles.

[DevonTexas]

09:51 PM on 03/19/2011

I hope they publish it. I'd buy a copy. It provides an insight to his view of Chirstianity.

[skyewriter]

10:09 PM on 03/19/2011

The text of the _Jefferson Bible_ is public domain and you should be able to find a copy online for free... it's been around for about 100 years or so. Happy reading!

[DevonTexas]

10:13 PM on 03/19/2011

thanks for that.

[TYRANNASAURUS]

06:51 PM on 03/19/2011

It includes the Crucifixion and burial of Jesus but not the Resurrection and leaves out the miracles attributed to him.

Since Jesus never existed he could have left out the crucifixion and burial too....but then in the early eighteen hundreds they didn't know that he never existed.

[variety lights]

05:03 PM on 03/19/2011

seperation of church in state. lol nawww

[Forester]

02:13 AM on 03/19/2011

They should publish that thing.

[skyewriter]

05:58 PM on 03/17/2011

For anyone who wants to better know this incredible figure in American history, you have *free* access to his letters at the Library of Congress' website:http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/

(27,000+ documents penned by his own hand)

He was *not* a fan of Christianity and those who perpetually tout him as their hero on the right side of the spectrum might learn that today he would look more like your contemporary progressive than your typical GOPer.

While you're at it, why not check out the journals of George Washington to "Better-Know-A-Founding-Father":
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/

[DevonTexas]

09:53 PM on 03/19/2011

so now you're using fact to argue against opinion! LOL Thanks for that link. Interesting reading.

[skyewriter]

10:18 PM on 03/19/2011

Heya! I didn't see you down here, too. If you want access to free books, Project Gutenberg is usually a good place to start (has a lot of older texts that are no longer under copyright protection). Cheers!

[Thisboy]

11:45 PM on 04/02/2011

Somehow this "Christian Nation" can manage to justify the actions of a man that dierected his armies to lay waste to every man woman and child of a the Iraqoise tribe and after completing their duty skin them from the hips down and use these gruesome souvenirs as leggings or boot tops?

[Hillbilly49]

05:33 PM on 03/17/2011

Jefferson understood Christianity for what it was not what not what it truly is.

[craftycrow]

03:39 PM on 03/17/2011

I am so glad for this article. People constantly talk about the good Christian forefathers...pfft. The 18th century's version of Christianity was so different from ours.

[Hillbilly49]

05:39 PM on 03/17/2011

From everything I have read from the founding fathers; they were either agnostics or atheists. 

[vincefango]

07:50 PM on 03/17/2011

Many were Deists, which the Jefferson Bible reflects.

[INTUITE]

06:40 PM on 03/16/2011

Obviously not one of the fundamentalists favorite presidents. He was not the only founding father that was not a believer in the trinity, resurrection, or miracles. Both the Adams as well as others; something the Republicans who are always quoting "the founding fathers" would just as soon no one know anything about.

[Hillbilly49]

05:40 PM on 03/17/2011

That must be why the fundamentalists are trying to take Jefferson out of the Texas history books.

[Cinnamonape]

03:50 PM on 03/16/2011

"He never sold it because he didn't want it to be public," Harry R. Rubenstein, the chair of the museum's political history division, told The Washington Post. "He wanted to avoid bringing back the arguments that he was anti-Christian."

Ironic in that it mainly contains ONLY the words attributed to Jesus from the Gospels and a few other Scriptural documents. Jefferson cut out all the "interpretation" that dealt with theological additions and spin...what others said his words "meant"...all the prophetic links and predictions...and claims of deification and miraculous events that were never claimed by Jesus.

In fact, Jefferson could be called the most fundamentalist of Christians...letting Jesus speak alone- without having the epileptic-seizure prone "Christian-persecutor" Saul/Paul (the first born-again) creating a new Christianity.

That said...I though that the "Jefferson Bible" was distributed to entering members of Congress every two years...or is that a different version?

[de-meme-ing]

04:29 PM on 03/16/2011

Yes, he was a fundamentalist, a cruel man in that he practiced slavery. In fact he knew that the cruelty to slaves was so bad, he was terrified of them rising up and killing him and all his ilk.

As such, "the solution" he proposed was sending them back to Africa, where of course they would most likely be sold back into slavery. The Africans, iow's, also participated in slavery. No they aren't innocent.

But then again, the world wide flood of that time was slavery, and the philosophy that supported it, and was embraced world wide: karma and reincarnation. People were vengeful, wanting their pound of flesh.

The message of Jesus is one of forgiveness and renewal, not reincarnation and karma.

One doesn't need the writings of Paul or anyone else for that matter to understand the the New Testament. They are better off wiwthout it, and without the OT.

As to the deification of Jesus: those claims were made by Jesus.

That deifcation is accepted by Christians; the better to see you with, and know who you are.

[Hillbilly49]

05:36 PM on 03/17/2011

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
— Thomas Jefferson

[Hillbilly49]

05:35 PM on 03/17/2011

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology."



— Thomas Jefferson

[ninetailedfox]

02:45 PM on 03/16/2011

The Vedas too.

[ninetailedfox]

02:44 PM on 03/16/2011

Actually the Upanishads and the Bhagvhad gita probably get more sells than the bible, because the Hindu religion predates the christian one.

[ninetailedfox]

02:33 PM on 03/16/2011

I would have written a bible in reverse of Jefferson's personally, take out all the good stuff, leave in the bad. Because it seems to me most christians live by the bad stuff, but preach the good.

[alterego55]

05:56 PM on 03/16/2011

Take out all of the Jesus stuff and just leave in the hocus pocus. Neither Stephen King nor Dean Koontz could beat that one.

[onionboy]

01:40 PM on 03/16/2011

Given that Jefferson edited his own Bible, it makes one wonder about the mutability of the Constitution in his eyes.

[StevenevetS]

05:21 PM on 03/18/2011

The Constitution is not immutable, (thank goodness!)
That's why we have the Bill of Rights and the Amendments.

The ancient Jewish scholars said (paraphrasing) that the problem with writing down spiritual truths is that the essence evaporates before the ink dries.

[Okiemama]

09:21 AM on 03/22/2011

Has been awhile since you wrote but thought you might like to see this: "Some men look at constitutions with santimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment....laws and institutions must go hand in hand with progress of the human mind as that becomses more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." Thomas Jefferson Hope that answers your question. Everything that the tea party believes about the founders is wrong.

[onionboy]

12:39 PM on 03/22/2011

Perfect. Thanks. I just re-posted it in another thread about a completely different subject.