The Smithsonian has restored and put on display a 19th century book known as "The Jefferson Bible." (Courtesy of the Smithsonian)
Before everyone gets in a tizzy over this article, please do everyone a favor and read the whole thing. It's interesting how this author throws rocks at David Barton.
Slavery is bad but I have slaves is probably the most visible.
I heard Santorum wants to make Latin the official language.
The left don't like their version of history being challenged.
Today, the facts about "The Jefferson Bible" might seem like an impossible obstacle to anyone who wants to fashion Jefferson as a hero for right-leaning Christians — and America as a "Christian nation." Instead, the book has been distorted to fit the religious right's agenda.
The author of this article has some major issues with David Barton and organized religion in general ...
He didn’t hold two views on the Book of Revealations. He held one consistent view on that part of the Bible, and it’s not one the fundamentalists will appreciate.
I find it difficult to see why Tom would go to all this trouble.
If the “non-rational” parts of the Gospels are untrue, what reason is there to believe the remaining parts bear any relationship to what actually happened?
I’ve read several bios of Tom, and there’s little doubt he was not either an atheist or a Christian in the traditional sense.
He was quite devout in the Church of Tom, where Tom decided what was true and what wasn’t. A kind of megalomania, IMO.
As for Barton, he has a habit of having to take back things he said. Google his name and “unconfirmed quotations”.
I do not understand why “ fundamenalists” or whatever people feel the need to believe enrything literally.
As TJ pointed out the basic message of Jesus and Christianity are remarkable enough.
I enjoyed the article and I think Jefferson was closer to Christian than atheist.
I'm sure that a religious person today could look at any of our lives and make comments showing we couldn't be "born again" Christians or we wouldn't have done or said this and that. There are just as many evidences of Jefferson using Scripture as "cutting" it out of the Bible. Many of the monuments he designed had Bible quotes on them.
The founders had many pastors as signers of the documents and almost all were describes as "devout" in early documents. Glomming on to a modified Bible from Jefferson seems a little desperate to make an irrelevant point. America was formed as a "Christian" nation, but didn't require you to profess it. That was a breakthrough for people that had been forced to bow and kiss a ring to remain breathing.
I'm sure, Jefferson, thinking himself wise, became a fool. If you are going to believe Jesus was the sacrificial Son of God, sent to die for your sins, what would be so difficult about a "virgin birth" or rising from the dead? If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then how can I count on Him to save me? Can a man walk on water or can God walk on water, and even fly into the clouds? He is either God or not. I'm sure that was the conflict he had much of his life. It is what all of us at some point has to decide. If God can create the universe and humans, why could he not fix their sin and be family with Him? God is quite a concept and is difficult for some. I too was a skeptic until the age of 43, and then God made Himself know to me in a manor that was undeniable for myself. it is easy for me to look as foolish as need be for my Savior after what he has shown me. But for someone else, it may not suffice.
I own a modern printing of this publication. It is not a “Bible”. It is a little book, a collection of extracts from the four gospels.