OK, I just finished it.
It isn’t “the Bible” and Jefferson objected to it being called that. It is his digest of only the gospels of Matthew, Luke, John and Mark portion of the New Testament, minus what he called “superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications” produced by the “ignorant, unlettered” authors of the gospels and the later “Platonists (who call ME infidel, and themselves Christians!) and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense.” including what “been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves.”
He called the Apostle Paul the “first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.” He dismissed the concept of the Trinity as “mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.” He believed that the clergy used religion as a “mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves” and that “in every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.” And he wrote in a letter to John Adams that “the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
But he found in the teachings of Jesus the most superior set of ethics and highly recommended his book to the native American: “Being an Abridgement of the New Testament for the Use of the Indians, Unembarrased [uncomplicated] with Matters of Fact or Faith beyond the Level of their Comprehensions”
Jefferson was a man of his time. It should be noted that he was president of the U.S. at the time of writing and at the time of publication he had just negotiated the Louisiana Purchase (1803) from Napoleon and was in the planning stages with Lewis and Clark toward their expedition (1804) for exploration of the newly acquired western lands. So, pacification and indoctrination of the native peoples were paramount in his mind during this time.
“There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.”
He titled the initial 1803 work, “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth.” But he found it unsatisfactory and after some reworking, he titled his 1804 work, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” It was never published as “The Jefferson Bible” in his lifetime.
Here is a verbatum version of “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” without commentary. It is Jefferson’s compilation and reduction of what he determined to be pertinent information concerning Jesus’ life and teachings extracted from the four gospels. It’s only 20 pages long. It is a clear and concise story of a man’s life and teachings with the probable place names, events and historical characters referred to in the gospels without extraneous confusion. It’s easy reading and not at all confusing or encumbered by the frequent inconsistencies and contradictions caused by four different guys telling the same story.
I like it. It makes a lot of sense. And it is much easier to follow from a historian’s point of view. Having read the Catholic version and the King James version of the gospels, I agree wholeheartedly with Jefferson’s assessment and his opinion of Jesus’ ethics and teachings.
Composing members:
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Composing members:
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