'The Jefferson Bible' Review: The Gospel, Sans Miracles
By: Crawford Gribben (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
However else he is known, Thomas Jefferson ought to be remembered as the great American prophet, the founder of a new nation and apostle of its faith. In “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” his scrapbook of New Testament excerpts, the third president offered a dramatic revision of Christian tradition. The New Testament presented “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man,” he recognized, even if he hoped to sharpen those qualities by means of redaction. Recycling select passages from the Gospels, he included their ethical content but omitted any reference to the supernatural and presented the Messiah less as savior than as savant.
But Jefferson kept his project secret, worried that his freethinking devotional pastime could become a serious political liability and discussed it with only a handful of similarly enlightened friends. He had little to be worried about. The nation that he and his philosophical friends created in their image needed this version of Jesus.
Peter Manseau knows the Jefferson Bible well. As a senior curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, he has come to understand the scrapbook—literally—inside out. His outstanding biography of the text, the latest entry in Princeton’s Lives of Great Religious Books series, pays careful attention to its status as private project, published book and political symbol.
Mr. Manseau’s short but penetrating narrative begins with the book’s composition. In a project first developed over many evenings in the White House, he shows us, Jefferson deconstructed sacred tradition by distinguishing (as he put it) “diamonds from dunghills” in Gospel accounts of the ministry of Christ. As his project developed, Jefferson took a penknife to English, French, Latin and Greek New Testaments, pasting about 1,000 verses into a scrapbook that by 1820, when he was nearing 80, he had bound in red leather, the reading of which seems to have constituted the scope of his private devotions. When he died in 1826, the scrapbook disappeared.
It was only in the late 19th century that “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” was rediscovered and identified as a important American text. Jefferson’s Jesus—all morals and no miracles—became an ethical guide for everyman.
The sudden celebration of his Bible was largely due to the work of Cyrus Adler, a Jew who became a professor of Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins University and who held a series of senior Smithsonian positions. During his doctoral studies, in the mid-1880s, Adler had stumbled across some of the editions of the New Testament that Jefferson had mutilated in order to populate his scrapbook. Jefferson’s habit of textual criticism had been aggressive, and the New Testaments he had discarded after excerpting those saying of Jesus he believed to be authentic encouraged Adler to believe that the scrapbook itself might yet be recovered. Soon enough, it was. In 1895, after several years of searching, Adler found the scrapbook and bought it.
In 1895, at the Cotton States and International Exposition, in Atlanta, Adler mounted an exhibition of biblical materials that included Gothic and Anglo-Saxon editions of the Bible; Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, Geneva and King James translations; the “Eliot Indian Bible,” a translation of the Geneva Bible into the Massachusett language; and, as a grand finale, Jefferson’s textual collage. For Adler, Jefferson’s Bible was the American book—an ethical system supporting republican democracy that showed how religious communities could benefit from the separation of church and state.
Senior figures in Teddy Roosevelt’s administration agreed. In 1904, Congress authorized the printing of 9,000 copies of the Jefferson Bible to the consternation of large numbers of Christian clergy, who understood its assault on traditional orthodoxies. The Jefferson Bible took on a life of its own when it became a printed artifact. While its symbolic status continued, its contents were quietly adapted as publishers reinstated in its life of Christ many of the supernatural elements that Jefferson had removed. Since 1904, Mr. Manseau demonstrates, Jefferson’s Bible has existed in many forms and offered many meanings. It has been read in support of conservative reaction and progressive change, as a symbol of Christian exceptionalism and of humanity’s many mistaken faiths. At once singular and multiple, faithful and heretical, the Jefferson Bible is a fitting symbol of the nation to which it belongs.
For Adler, of course, was right. Jefferson’s Bible was an American book. Its project was to make Jesus politically useful, to represent Jesus as an idealized American man. But in turning the Gospels into a handbook of morals Jefferson failed as a religious teacher. For his Jesus is forever on the brink of doing something extraordinary—but never does. “Jefferson’s Jesus stories are all set up with no pay off,” Mr. Manseau notes. “Time and again, Jesus indicates that he might be able to perform a miracle of some kind, and then does nothing. While this no doubt made him more acceptable in Enlightenment circles, one imagines it would have made Jesus far less popular in Galilee”—and less interesting, one might add, everywhere else.
But, though it is a great book in its way, Jefferson’s Bible will do little to enhance the reputation of its editor. Just as Jefferson took apart his copies of the New Testament, so Smithsonian curators have taken apart his scrapbook in their ongoing conservation efforts. What they have found promises to reveal as much about Jefferson’s body as his soul. The DNA evidence supplied by the hairs they discovered in the disbound manuscript may settle the question, to the degree that there is still reasonable doubt, of his relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and of the paternity of her children.
In “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” Jefferson stripped from the message of Jesus any discussion of repentance and forgiveness. But, Mr. Manseau reminds us, those might be the elements of Jesus’ teaching that the sage of Monticello needed most.
Mr. Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.
Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
Was Thomas Jefferson was a master plagiarist ?
Or did he simply utilize language from the Bible?
Did he lift language from Locke to incorporate it into the Declaration of Independence as well?
Mr. Jefferson seemed to be an intelligent, rational individual who didn't buy into some of the BS presented in the bible like miracles, as some unquestionably do.
Did you READ your own seed Vic?
It clearly states that Jefferson cut and pasted original text from multiple bibles to create a 'scrapbook' for his private devotions. At NO time did Jefferson claim 'credit' for it's content.
As I said in another seed yesterday, I wish that you and yours would learn how to use terms properly.
That's why we have you, Dulay!
You seem to be implying that I'm here to teach you and yours the proper use of terms. I'm not.
NT is an adult site and adults should take on the personal responsibility to educate themselves where their knowledge is found lacking.
Please proceed.
No, I wasn't. That was a joke.
I'm not.
Perhaps the avatar indicates why you are here?
NT is an adult site
Let's all keep that in mind.
Then it fell flat.
As does yours.
"Let's".
You are trying diligently to flatten it.
[deleted]
Apparently he suffered greatly from the condition of being human.
He enjoyed the idea of being religious but rejected the moral obligations of actually believing that Christ was God made flesh - his personal savior.
He enjoyed the idea of being against the condition of slavery in the United States in the abstract but rejected the moral responsibility of actually being a slave owner.
A reading of only the 'red letter' portion of the New Testament is pretty close to the Jefferson Bible.
The NT certainly depicts a kinder, gentler God with a significantly better moral message than the atrocities of the OT. So I can see the value in Jefferson's work given the times.
I have suggested this in different ways, but if religions were to focus on the good moral teachings in the NT, disregarded the bad notions (slavery was never condemned as immoral) and treat it as words of men (not the literal word of a perfect God) then I think we would see a net move to the positive. That is, instead of the Bible, follow Jefferson's lead with a book that makes sense.
As for God, I think it would be a great improvement if people recognized that while a God might indeed exist, we know nothing whatsoever about this God. We have no idea what God wants of us (if anything), why we are here, what plans (if any) have been made on our behalf, etc.
So, rationally, we might be best served holding that God might exist and then focus on trying to understand God by understanding ourselves and the awesome environment (the universe) in which we exist.
First of all, thanks Vic for bringing this very interesting article here.
I have actually read portions of the Jefferson Bible, which I kid about and call the "Jefferson Scrapbook", but I think what he was trying to do, was make a rational bible, where only the parts that would apply to every person was included. I think his aim was to make an "American Bible" and in a way he did, since it was a unique reflection of one of our greatest thinkers, if not flawed.
Removing the fantastic from the bible, and bringing it down to ethical values, I think was brilliant. He made Jesus very accessible and an everyman. Someone people could relate to. I think that is what drew Adler to study it. Even a Jew could relate.
Who knew? I think you have it right Perrie, as do a few here I normally don't agree with.
My sister is a Jefferson scholar and she got an invitation to study the bible at Monticello. They gave copies of it to the people invited to read, and I was lucky enough to get my hands on it since she was allowed to keep her copy. They also reviewed the book "American Sphynx", which is a unique look at Jefferson's complex and conflicted personality and impact on our society.
Our founding father, be it, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, or Hamilton, were all great minds with very different views of what our country should be or could be. But no one was more unique than Jefferson, since he had an actual impact on his version of an "American Vision". The Louisiana Purchase and Manifest Destiny is proof of that. This bible is another. I am surprised that it is not more widely studied.
I wonder how many of our members have even heard of it?
Manifest Destiny being one of the most arrogant and destructive doctrines ever conceived.
Indeed. Not to mention it had (not surprisingly) religious influence. As a matter of historical note and comparison, Germany had a similar principle of manifest destiny, especially most notably and extreme in Nazi Germany. Hitler even made comparisons between his expansionistic ideology to the American manifest destiny.
Well, as someone who is Indian, I would have to agree. But it still defined the country.
Hitler took a lot of ideas from America. He also studied our Jim Crow laws as a way of defining race.
As for Hitler's belief in "Lebensraum", I didn't realize he had gotten that from us, but I am not surprised.
Yes, it was, and it was a follow up on the ''Doctrine of Discovery''.
You are correct. Whenever someone has a doctrine or principle of conquering or controlling, it is nothing more than giving oneself permission to do something they see as a right or duty. But it usually does not bode well for those on the receiving end of said doctrine. The idea of declaring oneself as "exceptional" or destined is just hubris and arrogance.
I would have to agree. Jefferson had many conflicting beliefs on slavery and on Indians. According to Wiki:
I think that his belief that Indians were culturally and technologically inferior, was probably how he could justify Manifest Destiny, although I must point out that Jefferson himself, never moved any Indians from their homes. He just sent a very mixed message.
Encountering what one considers an "inferior" race or culure is how manifest destinies begin.
More's the pity.
Unfortunately, I'm not so sure that it's in the past where it belongs.
This is from his own writings.
President Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, December 29, 1813
“This unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and to civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate.”
Yup, he was a real supporter of Indians. /s
You mean began. It's 2020 - we are centuries beyond that particular idea. That being said Perrie was absolutely right - "Jefferson, Adams, Madison, or Hamilton, were all great minds with very different views of what our country should be or could be."
Jefferson was the architect of Indian removal policy.
No, he meant what he wrote.
Too many right wing & left wing and religious extremists of both stripes believe in manifest destiny.
Is that why all that bait was hung out there? Please note: there were no takers.
The problem with the haters on the left is that they just can't get it through their indoctrinated heads that there is nobody alive today who had anything to do with "manifest destiny" or anything that happened 3 or 4 centuries ago. I do know that the people doing all the rioting are responsible in 2020 and must be punished!
I know what I said.
We all do. I was stating what you should of said. (Everyone knows it)
is all of the haters on the right...
Manifest destiny was a phrase coined in 1845, not 3 or 4 centuries ago and has driven American foreign policy ever since, more so under conservative Administrations.
The Mexican War, the Spanish American War, WWI, the Bush attitude toward Iraq in 2000 and 2003.
I doubt you will find anyone except the rioters who will disagree with that statement.
I beg to differ. The US involvement in two world wars and the middle east had zero to do with "Manifest Destiny." Manifest Destiny was a belief that settlers were destined to expand the borders of the US across North America.
I doubt you will find anyone
I hate to tell you this, but not everyone thinks like you, Split. Furthermore, I'm not interested in discussing it with you.
Sorry.
Manifest Destiny wasn't 3 or 4 hundred years ago. A brief look at history will tell you that in 1953 through 1973 two US policies were instituted against Native Americans. One was PL280 or the Tribal Termination act and the other was the Indian relocation act. Both were used to take Indian lands and give/sell them to non-Indians. It was fairly successful in that well over 100 tribes lost their federal recognition and over 2,500,000 acres of land.
Is this period of time in the mid 20th Century part of the original MD? Or was it a separate time and issues that had the same result as MD.
I was alive during this time frame and remember it quite well. Were you alive in 1953/1973?
If that's what I wanted to say, I would have said it!
and spread democracy beyond our borders...to the Caribbean, South America ( CIA) end engage in nation building in our image ( Japan, Germany & Iraq)
I am so sorry that you are not a student of history or the shameless history of slavery or anti native American Indian affairs in this country.
Sorry, but not at all surprised by your lack of knowledge or willingness to discuss it or learn anything that might threaten
your precious white male version of this country.