Thomas Jefferson Bible

Thomas Jefferson Bible

There are several significant prior values that have been rejected in the Jefferson bible. Christianity religion is based on the trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. However, Jefferson did not believe in these elements, which form the core values of the Christian religion. He states that the doctrine of the trinity is a humanmade doctrine that has not been mentioned in the bible. He discredited the New Testament, which is mainly about Jesus Christ and the gospel, which He was spreading. Therefore, he discredited the divinity of Jesus Christ. He wrote two pieces of non-sacred theology, which were aimed at providing a comprehensive biography of Jesus concerning his life and morals. The two articles are often referred to as one, and they are known as the Jeffersonian Bible, and they provide an evaluation of the sacred text. They are titles. “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, the syllabus of an estimate of the merit of the doctrines of Jesus, and the Philosophy of Jesus (Hall, 1913).”

Miracles are also a significant part of the Christian religion, and from the Old to the New Testament, there are many counts of miracles that were performed. However, Jefferson is well known to have discredited the existence of miracles, and this is further supported by discrediting the New Testament, where there are many counts of wonders. His version of the New Testament has omitted miracles performed by Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, and His resurrection. This is a clear indication that he does not believe in the miracles which have been documented in the New Testament. He thought that the teachings of Jesus Christ are instructions of the most significant moral standing ever to be presented by a human being. However, he also believed that even though the New Testament presents Jesus’s teachings, it is tainted by information provided by the early believers. Therefore, not everything that is in the New Testament should be believed (Hall, 1913).

Jefferson did not believe in the original sin, where Christians believe that everyone is born with sin because of the crimes committed by Adam and Eve. He did not think that God was capable of faulting and condemning every person in the human race because of the sins committed by two individuals. He considered it to be the most excellent form of injustice that could be carried out by God. Further, there is the concept of atonement where the death and the bloodshed by Jesus Christ on the cross is believed to have atoned for all the sins of humankind. Jesus as a divine being is capable of being able to atone all our sins; however, Jefferson did not believe in the divinity of Christ; hence, he did not believe that Jesus Christ can atone all our sins. He did not see how one being could be held responsible for all humanity’s sins. The original sin and the atonement are some of the most compelling doctrines in the Christian religion and form the basis for most of the practices in the Christian faith. Therefore, Jefferson discrediting them shows that he was not a Christian (Hall, 1913).

Therefore, the Jefferson bible is crafted as a result of his rejection of bible revelations and content, which he considered as supernatural. He was able to cut out several parts of the New Testament, including the virgin birth, Jesus Christ’s resurrection, and the miracle of walking on water and many others, which he considered unexplainable. Therefore, through the process, he was able to end up with a book that was only 90 pages long, yet we all know that the New Testament is much longer than that.  What remained were mostly the teachings of Christ, and from this, he often claimed to be anti-Christian but pro-Jesus. He advocated reason-based faith in God but not blind faith in the supernatural powers, which were believed to be from God.

Jefferson believed that the teachings of Jesus Christ present the highest form of morality than any other human or philosopher has ever offered. Therefore, in the Jefferson bible, he has majorly given the teachings of Jesus and omitted the writings which he did not believe in, or those which he believed were added into the books by the early followers of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Jefferson bible is mostly filled with the wisdom which was presented by Jesus Christ when he was teaching his followers here on earth. However, I believe the enlightenment does not only come from what was included in the Jefferson bible but also on what was excluded from it. He presents reasons why he does not believe some texts which are presented in the bible, and this offers some enlightenment to the readers. This helps enlightenment readers because they often seek to understand the genesis of an event rather than following it blindly as the bible advocates (Koselak, 1999).

He believed that the principles of freedom could be proclaimed from nature and did not depend on either human or divine law. He claimed that the truths of religion should be held as self-evident. Therefore, there is no need to rely upon anyone for them to be revealed to us.  Just like any other enlightenment thinker, he was not arguing against the existence of God but endeavored to prove the existence of God through Scientific and personal means rather than divine methods. The path of religion should not be led by faith, which is blind, but instead, it should be guided by reason, which is analytical. This was the basis for eliminating some of the texts in his bible, the supernatural passages which existed did not make any sense in the age of reason and scientific understanding of occurrences. Therefore, the Jefferson Bible has many enlightenment values which the reader can draw from (Koselak, 1999).

John Locke is the enlightenment thinker who is closest to the views of Thomas Jefferson. He advocated for the utilization of knowledge and reason before making a decision, which is what Jefferson was advocating for when it comes to faith. He aimed at eliminating the concept of heresy, where religious leaders were expressing unauthorized spiritual thoughts. He considered this to be criminal since he believed that knowledge and learning, which was based on dissent, might present a danger to the public. Anyone that gives anything which endangers the public should be considered as a criminal. They both believed in a democracy, which also allows for the freedom of religion. Even most of the concepts which Thomas Jefferson applied in his leadership were drawn from John Locke. Therefore there are similarities between the two treatises of government created by John Locke and the Declaration of Independence, formulated by Thomas Jefferson (Katz, 1976).