The Jefferson Bible

Rating:
Summary: Well... just read on
Review: Did you ever wonder what the Gospels would be like without all that supernatural stuff? Thomas Jefferson did, and he found out [in around 1820] by using multiple copies of the Bible and a razor blade. The result was The Life and Morals Of Jesus of Nazareth in four languages. The Jefferson Bible reprints the english version of The Life And Morals along with an excellent introductory essay by Forrest Church, Unitarian minister and son of Senator Frank Church, and a decent closing essay by Jaroslav Pelikan. I have known about the Jefferson Bible for years, but finally read it this year on Easter [it seemed like a good thing for an atheist and rationalist to do]. Jesus said some pretty cool things [and some pretty spacey things], and the force of the teachings come out more when divorced from everything else that appears with them in the New Testament. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the teachings of Jesus, or the mind and the religion of the writer of the Declaration of Independence. And if your neighbor starts telling you that the public schools should start teaching the religion of the Founding Fathers, you can give them a copy of the Jefferson Bible.

Rating:
Summary: The Good Parts New Testament
Review: Did you ever wonder what the Gospels would be like without all that supernatural stuff? Thomas Jefferson did, and he found out [in around 1820] by using multiple copies of the Bible and a razor blade. The result was The Life and Morals Of Jesus of Nazareth in four languages. The Jefferson Bible reprints the english version of The Life And Morals along with an excellent introductory essay by Forrest Church, Unitarian minister and son of Senator Frank Church, and a decent closing essay by Jaroslav Pelikan. I have known about the Jefferson Bible for years, but finally read it this year on Easter [it seemed like a good thing for an atheist and rationalist to do]. Jesus said some pretty cool things [and some pretty spacey things], and the force of the teachings come out more when divorced from everything else that appears with them in the New Testament. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the teachings of Jesus, or the mind and the religion of the writer of the Declaration of Independence. And if your neighbor starts telling you that the public schools should start teaching the religion of the Founding Fathers, you can give them a copy of the Jefferson Bible.

Rating:
Summary: Jefferson's genius shines through!!
Review: If you want to see Jesus in his own words. You must read this. Jefferson applied reason and science to break the Gospels down to just that which is directly attributed to Jesus Christ, You'll be surprised at how much more you can learn from this book than from the Bible.

Rating:
Summary: Throwing out what he didn't like....
Review: In one way, I haven't read this book. But in another way, I have read it and in its authentic context. (I've read the Bible.)

If Jefferson had chosen to clip out some of the "teachings" of Jesus, to focus upon them in order to study them with intellectual honesty, that would be one thing. If he chose to delete whatever Christ and others asserted about His divinity and therefore His authority and power to save us from eternally dead alienation in our sin, but instead to live in Christ's righteousness through our faith, that is a very stupid thing to do. It is very poor history, too.

The teachings of Jesus are inextricably woven with His own assertion of who He was (and is). They caused His countrymen to wonder at how He spoke with such authority. At this, some were compelled to listen, others were offended and some of these eventually provided the Earthly conditions of His crucifixion. The teachings of Christ are full of His references to what He really was about doing: coming from the Father to Earth, in order to provide salvation to rebellious humanity. (God being the authoritatively distinct Person, His revelation of Himself and the salvation He offers are also mercifully distinct.)

To ignore this is to attempt to hang certain of His words out in space, disattached from beginning, end, and context.

Hmm.... Maybe I'll edit the writings of Jefferson, to leave out the facts that he was one of the founding fathers and wrote the Declaration of Independence; I'll simply portray him as a political philosopher without his stated cause or consequence....

Naa.

Jefferson is dead.

(So are us all, unless we accept "the Way, the Truth, and the Life....")

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended, regardless of your religious beliefs
Review: Many Christian fundamentalists would argue that if Jesus was not what mainstream Christian theology says he is, then either he was a liar or a madman. That assumption is based of course on the idea that everything in the New Testament gospels must be taken as if it literally happened, as if the Gospel writers were able to accurately write what Jesus said and did in the same way a reporter could today. Balderdash. ....

"Jefferson's Bible" is an attempt--a labor of love--by one incredibly brilliant man to create a gospel that made sense, building on the writings of the original gospel writers (who he unfairly detested but had no choice to rely upon). Was he successful? That's for each person to determine for himself or herself. But whether you are a pure Unitarian (as Jefferson was) or a traditional Christian, or none of the above, the value of his work is in the way he reminds us of the truly wonderful morals that Jesus preached, many of which are overlooked in the lavish doctrinal attention paid to the Resurrection.

Rating:
Summary: An Enlightening Read
Review: The brilliant statesman who drafted the Declaration of Independence and served as America's third president boldly separated himself from the established churches of his day. Regarding Jesus as a great moral guide but not a divine figure, and believing that Jesus' message had been distorted by Christian prelates, Jefferson discarded the Old Testament and the works of Paul, and extracted from the Gospels the basic story and teachings of Jesus to compile what is called The Jefferson Bible. This new Noontide edition of a long-suppressed work is set in large type for easy reading. In an enlightening introduction, Biblical- and religious scholar Dr. Martin Larson explains the deist outlook of Jefferson and some of America's other founding fathers

Rating:
Summary: Only an insight to Jefferson's views, not the truth
Review: This book should be taken for what it is. Historically speaking, this book is very helpful in understanding the views and beliefs of one of our founding fathers. It is not, however, proof that all Christians are wrong!!! It has been proven that many books of the New Testament were written in the lifetime of witnesses to the crucifixion!!! Historians who lived during Jesus' time and were NOT followers of him wrote that Jesus claimed to be the son of GOd, so how can he be wiewed as a moral man if he lied about being the son of God? Why would so many people who knew Jesus claim to be witness to his Resurrection and die for this claim? Historians who lived at that time and were not followers of Jesus
said that these people were killed for their beliefs. If God does not exist, then how can good and evil exist? How do we know to distinguish between what is moral and what is not. If Jesus was not the Christ, how could someone from Nazareth and did not travel far from there with little education be so wise? If you think being an atheist or agnostic or Unitarian is truely right and Christians are wrong and self-rightoues(and yes there are many self rightous so called Christians who do not understand love and mercy along with rightouesness, and for that I am truely sorry), you should not be afraid to research the dating of historical documents found and writings of ancient historians or to read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel(Both of these authors used to be athiests and these books detail their research,discovery and spiritual journey) along with the books that supposedly are proof of atheism. Jefferson was a human being who achieved some wonderful things for our country, but by taking his views on Jesus as a support against Jesus as the Son of God and salvation through Him is in turn trying to make Jefferson a god. Just because there are some wonderful people who achieve wonderful things and are athiests doesn't mean they are right in being athiests. There is plenty of evidence for intelligent people (And no I am not saying that athiets and agnostics are not intelligent. I have three very intelligent athiests in my life whom I love dearly and are so precious to me) out there that is proof that Jesus IS the Son of God and that he did rise from the dead. If the Jews and Romans had Jesus' body, they would have gladly produced it to prove Jesus' followers wrong (Historical records by nonChristians will even attest to this), and if his followers did take his body and claim he had risen from the dead, why would they then be willing to die,some of them long agaonizing deaths for this, (there is historical proof of their deaths if your are willing to find it). If he did die and rise again, which there is enough real proof that he did, why would he do this if there were not a hell and why would he do this if we did not need to be saved for our sins. Most Christians know this and most leave it to God to make the judgement and have athiests friends whom they love dearly no matter what. Yes, the Bible is very complex, and we will not completely understand it this side of heaven, but there are thruths in there that can be proven now. God's mind is above ours. So, of course, we are not going to completely understand him but who are we to judge Him? And even though it seems that Jefferson was not a Christian(only he and God know that for sure)and definitely wanted religious freedom, I think he would be horrified to see the extremes that people are taking to separate church from state and the ridcule Christians suffer. Christians believe in freedom of religion. God gave us our own will to decide to choose him and his ways or not and I don't believe he intends us to force people into it, but I believe He wants us to speak the truth when it is being hidden, but that doesn't mean hitting people over the head with Bible and badgering them to death about it either.

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Summary: This book sends the Christian Right to the hills!!!
Review: Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers, is clearly against the Christian church whose teachings are mainly based on those of Paul (Corinthians) which he calls the "Great Corruptor" of Jesus' teachings. I guess not all Founding Fathers are Christians (by the definition of what a Christian is, that is, one that studies all the supernatural stuff + Corinthians, etc.), eh?

Another great read is Thomas Payne's Age of Reason.

This is what the Founders want for religious freedom, not what the Christian Right wants which is to force the government into an instrument of their filth.

If you are a Christian, i strongly recommend reading this book. Jefferson examine the writings of Mark/Luke/etc and realized that the only thing that can be trusted, are when the three of them testify to the SAME effect (i.e. the resurrection section and immaculate birth are not taughted by Jesus himself, and they vary between the three accounts). He also points out the main issue: Jesus did not write his own teachings down, and unlike Plato, etc. much of the things we have today in the Bible are written years later, from HUMAN memory. He also points out the paganistic nature of Christianity, which derives from Judaism -- and in order to convert pagans to Christianity, it must have paganistic characteristics, such as supernatural events that Paul and others later added to the bible and thus, corrupted what Jesus taught.

Rating:
Summary: "For who is in a position to condemn. NO, not one."
Review: Yes, Jesus is our redeemer. (And to the Atheist: He is our friend and savior. He does not condone slavery or abuse or war. As said in the t.v. series Joan of Arcadia when Joan asks Him if He is so good then why all this suffering? Why all these wars "in His name". To which He replies, "That is politics. Not me." God asks that we follow Him, yes, but not blindly. I am a Christian, but I do believe in all human rights and do not condone abuse or slavery. Yes, it is sad some use the Bible for hate when He is the God of love. Hopefully, you can meet some Christians that exemplify God's love rather than hatred. We do exist. And so do some of the churches. I am sorry that you have had to endure hypocrisy and hatred. That is not what Jesus or the Christian church is about)

THAT said. I think some of the "reviewers" forgot: "Who is in a position to condemn. NO, not one!" NOONE has the authority to tell anyone they are going to Hell becaue they didn't like the way a book was written. THAT is God's desicion alone. I will admit that reading the reviews about "taking a razor," put me off guard, but I would imagine it is being taken out of context. And again we need to be careful that we do not worship a book. We don't worship a book. We worship Jesus. This was shown in a sermon to which the minister tried to get people to understand by saying that "is this what you worship? If so, you need to throw it out the window". I am paraphrasing, but the message was we need to worship Jesus and what He taught us and teaches us. It is our relationship with Him and worship of Him not a book. I am NOT saying the Bible doesn't matter. It does very much, but sometimes many paradoxically can have such an idolotry for the book that they forget about Jesus.

If Jefferson committed his life to the Lord, that cannot be broken. "Nothing on Heaven or on earth can seperate us from the Love of God." Perhaps that is why we have so many atheists and agnostics or other non-belivers in the world, because like the atheist "reviewer" they don't see God's love exemplified in the world. Does it mean we accept anything? No, of course not. Yes, I do believe God rose from the dead and that Jesus cannot be reduced to just a nice guy. HOWEVER, are there not other books that focus on just Jesus's words? Yes, there are books which quote his promises only. Books that only have Jesus's words in them abound. Do we condem the authors to Hell because it only contains His words??? Of course not. They are not saying they don't believe in God. They are just helping people to see what Jesus was about in a more condensed version. Prayerfully this can be more of a witness helping them to go to the Bible but more importantly having a relationship with Jesus. Yes the Bible is important but it is God who came in human form. Who healed us, befriended us, saved us. THAT is what is important. OH and if we are talking about taking out....who took out what happened to Jesus between his infancy and his adult ministry? Granted, I am Protestant and I understand that his ministry in the gospels is what is important. However, I would say that is a big chunk taken out. What about devotionals? They have just a section of God's word. They have an interpretation of the scriptures. What about music? So much is in tune with God's word but they might take out a bit here or there or add for the music's sake. Are they going to Hell? NO! Whosoever believes in Him will NOT die but have ever lasting life. If Jefferson believed in the Lord, NOT ONE of you can take that away.