The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth was written/extracted by Thomas Jefferson and completed in 1820. Long known as “the Jefferson Bible,” a book by that title was published earlier this year to mark the bicentennial of Thomas Jefferson’s 84-page book.
The
Purpose of Jefferson’s Bible
In
spite of what many contemporary conservative evangelical Christians emphasize
about the early years of the United States, not all of the “forefathers” were
pious evangelical Christians.
In
particular, many of Thomas Jefferson’s contemporaries thought that he was anti-Christian
and perhaps even an atheist.
It
seems clear that Jefferson disliked evangelicalism. But it is also clear that
he liked Jesus of Nazareth, at least the teachings of Jesus, which he called “a
system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man”
(in a 10/31/1819
letter to William Short, his lifelong mentee).
It
is somewhat of a misnomer to refer to “the Jefferson Bible,” for it contains
only what Jefferson extracted from the four canonical Gospels.
Jefferson’s
intention was to separate “the diamond from the dung hill,” that is, to free
Jesus’ lustrous words from the “dross of his biographers.” The resultant book is
a short one of seventeen chapters, beginning with Jesus’ birth and ending with
his death and burial.
Jefferson’s
purpose was to present the teachings of Jesus unencumbered with anything “supernatural.”
Thus, for example, there is no inclusion of Jesus’ “virgin birth,” his miracles,
or his resurrection.
In
passing, it is interesting to note that in 1902 Tolstoy, about whom I posted a blog
article on Nov. 20, published The Gospel in Brief, a book similar to
Jefferson’s “Bible”—and similarly deleting the “supernatural” elements
surrounding Jesus.
The
Value of Jefferson’s Bible
As
there are many people—and, no doubt, a far higher percentage today than in
Jefferson’s time—whose “scientific worldview” prevents them from considering
anything that is unproven/unprovable by natural science to be true or real,
Jefferson’s Bible can be commended to such people.
Upon
recently reading The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth for the first
time, I was impressed not by how much was deleted from the canonical Gospels
but rather by how much was included from them.
(In
spite of hearing about “the Jefferson Bible” for many years, I was happy to
purchase a Kindle copy of it, for only 99 cents, and seeing firsthand what it
included. The Introduction is by Cyrus Adler, who in 1895 purchased Jefferson’s
book for the Smithsonian and published it for the first time.)
The Problem of Jefferson’s Bible
The
Jefferson Bible: A Biography, the bicentennial book mentioned above, is
by Peter Manseau, a current curator at the Smithsonian. This smallish book by Manseau
(b. 1974) is both scholarly and quite readable.
I
found “The Quest for the Jeffersonian Jesus,” the third chapter, to be of
greatest interest. There the author says that Jefferson rejected “the
supernatural, the miraculous, anything suggestive that Jesus might believe the
divine things said about him” (p. 66).
Consequently,
in Jefferson’s Bible we have “what Jefferson believed to be the words of Jesus,
but no real sense of why anyone would have listened to him. With miracles
hinted at but never delivered, forgiveness discussed but never offered . . . .”
Manseau
then remarks that Jefferson’s book “often has the feeling of a series of jokes
without their punch lines” (p 72).
As
is true for so many other people and so many other issues, Jefferson was right
in what he affirmed (the great significance of Jesus’ teaching) but wrong in
what he denied (the “supernatural” referent to Jesus’ life and teaching).
Further,
there is little evidence that Jefferson actually sought to live in any marked
manner according to the teachings of Jesus included in his book. He certainly
did not do that to the extent that Tolstoy did—but that is the same for most of
us, even those of us who claim to believe the canonical Gospels.
