The Bible, minus the Bullsh*t.

Thomas Jefferson's Bible.

http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/

Thomas Jefferson was frustrated. It was not the burdens of office that bothered him. It was his Bible.

Jefferson was convinced that the authentic words of Jesus written in the New Testament had been contaminated. Early Christians, overly eager to make their religion appealing to the pagans, had obscured the words of Jesus with the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and the teachings of Plato. These "Platonists" had thoroughly muddled Jesus' original message. Jefferson assured his friend and rival, John Adams, that the authentic words of Jesus were still there. The task, as he put it, was one of abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separate from that as the diamond from the dung hill.

With the confidence and optimistic energy characteristic of the Enlightenment, Jefferson proceeded to dig out the diamonds. Candles burning late at night, his quill pen scratching "too hastily" as he later admitted, Jefferson composed a short monograph titled The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth. The subtitle explains that the work is "extracted from the account of his life and the doctrines as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke & John." In it, Jefferson presented what he understood was the true message of Jesus.

Jefferson set aside his New Testament research, returning to it again in the summer of 1820. This time, he completed a more ambitious work, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French and English. The text of the New Testament appears in four parallel columns in four languages. Jefferson omitted the words that he thought were inauthentic and retained those he believed were original. The resulting work is commonly known as the "Jefferson Bible."

Who was the Jesus that Jefferson found? He was not the familiar figure of the New Testament. In Jefferson's Bible, there is no account of the beginning and the end of the Gospel story. There is no story of the annunciation, the virgin birth or the appearance of the angels to the shepherds. The resurrection is not even mentioned.

Jefferson discovered a Jesus who was a great Teacher of Common Sense. His message was the morality of absolute love and service. Its authenticity was not dependent upon the dogma of the Trinity or even the claim that Jesus was uniquely inspired by God. Jefferson saw Jesus as a man, of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, (and an) enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions of divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the Roman law.
In short, Mr. Jefferson's Jesus, modeled on the ideals of the Enlightenment thinkers of his day, bore a striking resemblance to Jefferson himself.

He was the father of "cut and paste."

Oh, the excruciating trolling conundrum! :evilgrin:

Basically the Jefferson Bible, but in the NAV grammaar without all the Shalts, etc.

An old roommate's parents are 7th Day Adventists. They came over for one weekend, and the father(nice guy, BTW), asked me if I had a Bible handy.

I said, "sure", and got him my Jefferson Bible. 2 minutes later, he says, "Hey, where are the miracles in here?".

"Jefferson didn't believe in magic parlor tricks and neither do I"

That didn't go over too well.

uses the Jefferson Bible.

no one seems to have gotten the memo, though. :-(

But, yes, this is the one message that gets obscured by all the translated political crap (yes, crap, because it's totaly off message) in the Bible.

URGENT! Timing is critical to save earthquake victims before winter!

"wrong" in the "Jefferson Bible" - indeed a copy is given every new Senator as a swearing in gift.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

On matters of religion, Jefferson was sometimes accused by his political opponents of being an atheist; however, he is generally regarded as a believer in Deism, a philosophy shared by many other notable intellectuals of his time. Jefferson repeatedly stated his belief in a creator, and in the United States Declaration of Independence uses the terms "Creator", "Nature's God", and "Divine Providence". Jefferson believed, furthermore, it was this Creator that endowed humanity with a number of inalienable rights, such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

AND FROM A UU HANDOUT: He was raised as an Anglican and always maintained some affiliation with the Anglican Church. He was also known to contribute financially, in fair proportion, to every denomination in his town. While a student at William and Mary College, he began to read the Scottish moral philosophers and other authors who had made themselves students of church history. These scholars opened the door for Jefferson's informed criticism of prevailing religious institutions and beliefs. But it was the world renowned English Unitarian minister and scientist, Joseph Priestley, who had the most profound impact on his thought. According to Priestley's Corruptions of Christianity, published in 1782, and many other of his books, the teachings of Jesus and his human character were obscured and obfuscated in the early Christian centuries. As the Church Fathers adapted Christianity to Mediterranean-primarily Greek-forms of thought, they contrived doctrines altogether foreign to Biblical thought, such as the doctrine of the Trinity. Jefferson assumed that a thoroughly reformed Christian faith, true to Jesus' teaching, would be purged of all Greek influence and doctrinal absurdity.

Jefferson never joined a Unitarian church. He did attend Unitarian services while visiting with Joseph Priestley after his immigration to Pennsylvania and spoke highly of those services. He corresponded on religious matters with numerous Unitarians, among them Jared Sparks (Unitarian minister, historian and president of Harvard), Thomas Cooper, Benjamin Waterhouse and John Adams. He was perhaps most open concerning his own beliefs in his long exchange of letters with John Adams during their late years, 1812-26.

that's around now.

...trying to return the favor ever since.

"...Jefferson's Jesus.... bore a striking resemblance to Jefferson himself."

:-)

:toast:

:-)