WASHINGTON, November 9, 2011 – Thomas Jefferson created not only the Declaration of Independence, but also his own “cut and paste” version of the Bible entitled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," or more popularly known as the Jefferson Bible.
The third American president’s recently conserved book goes on display November 11 – May 28 at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in DC. It’s debut from the archives is sure to resurrect controversy and discussion that has followed Jefferson since the 1800 presidential election when his opposers accused him of being an atheist and infidel.
The Jefferson Bible on display is one the Smithsonian acquired in 1895 from Jefferson’s great –granddaughter Carolina Randolph, and Jefferson’s second abridged Bible. The exhibition also details the complex conservation of the 200 year-old book that Jefferson constructed more like a scrapbook, including clipped passages from printed New Testaments in four languages. He glued them onto blank pages to allow for comparisons. The volume was professional bound in leather with gold tooling.
The first book Jefferson created in 1804 is lost. He did “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth” just after completing the Louisiana Purchase. He sat down in the White House with two Bibles and a razor and began cutting out the words of Jesus from those he claimed were put into his mouth by the “corruptions of schematizing followers.” Translation: he believed Christianity had been corrupted by the Apostle Paul, and others like Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin.
When he retired from public life in 1820, Jefferson produced his second book that’s property of the Smithsonian. Included are passages from the Four Gospels in English, French, Latin and Greek. It’s a collection of Jesus’ sayings, but nothing about his miracle birth and resurrection – both lynchpins of traditional Christian belief.
Was Jefferson a Christian believer? The debate continues. . .
After he completed his second book, Jefferson wrote to a friend that it demonstrated his bona fides as a Christian. “It is document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.”
That declaration has been hotly debated for over two centuries however. His detractors claim he did not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ or any supernatural events.
Jefferson dismissed his accusers as counterfeits themselves. Religion is about doing good, he declared, not abstract theologizing. He rejected the Nicene Creed, which has underscored orthodoxy for most Christians since A.D. 381. And he declared the doctrine of the Trinity was “mere Abracadabra” and “hocus-pocus phantasm.” He called his despisers “pseudo-Christians” and imposters peddling a counterfeit faith.
Authors of the canonical Gospels were toJefferson “ignorant, unlettered men” who laid a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications.” The Apostle Paul made things worse, he said. “Of this band of dupes and imposters, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.”
Jefferson knew his views were controversial and had no intention of publishing his work. The book stayed in the Jefferson family until the Smithsonian acquired it.
You can see the conserved Jefferson Bible for a few months in the nation’s biggest treasure trove of heritage, the Smithsonian. And Smithsonian Books is offering a reproduction facsimile for sale online and at the exhibition.
Read more of Ruth Hill’s columns in the Washington Times Communities, Contemporary Christian Travel.
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