Thanks. I’ve seen that. It’s the New Testament without the divinity of Christ.
But, certain paradoxes apply here.
The first is from CS Lewis. We have to assume one of three things about Jesus:
1) He was a liar.
2) He was a madman.
3) He was what he said he was.
If 1 or 2 is true, then Jefferson is a fool for listening to a liar or a madman. If 3 is true, then Jefferson missed out on the true greatness of Jesus.
But, just in case Jesus never made any claims and this is all the work of a traveling band of con artists, known as the Apostles, there is another paradox.
If they were lying, why did they suffer horrible deaths to sustain the lie? Surely, after the stoning of Stephen, they would have melted away into the countryside to resume their simple lives.
So, they saw something that made them willing to die, one at a time after living a life on the run.
Then, comes the third and final paradox: what if they never lived either and this is all a fabrication of the Council of Nicaea. Well, then we have the greatest conspiracy in the history of man, but Jefferson is still a fool for following the teachings a fictitious man, as written by fictitious apostles, compiled by an evil cabal of liars.
Simply put, if you don’t believe the divinity of Jesus, then why even pretend that he is significant. Go be a Buddhist. At least there is external evidence of his existence and his teachings are much more comprehensive.
There is another option. Jesus didn’t write the gospels. Other people did. They wrote them long after the events happened, and had their own motivations for what they included and didn’t include.
John Allegro wrote ‘The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross’ describing one potential motivation for the author of some of what became “Mark”.
We know that some parts of Matthew were being added to as late as the 4th Century. Later additions probably have little to do with who or what Jesus may have been.
I was in a Little Tokoyo hotel (in Los Angeles) recently, and they had a Buddhist book, placed neatly alongside the Gideon Bible and the Book of Mormon.
So was Moroni a liar, a madman, or was he what he said he was? Was the book of Mormon a hoax? Is it a great conspiracy, despite Joseph Smith Jr.’s death for his teachings?