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#794 Jefferson's Bible

from 2009 by Listening to America with Clay Jenkinson

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Jefferson first discussed producing his own version of the Christian bible in a letter to Joseph Priestly in 1803. He eventually edited together The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, which begins with an account of the birth of Jesus but omits any references to miracles, the divinity of Jesus or the resurrection. Jefferson intended the book for his own use. He shared it with a number of his friends but did not allow it to be published.

He wrote to John Adams about it in 1813: "We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines."

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from 2009, track released November 8, 2009

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Listening to America with Clay Jenkinson

The Thomas Jefferson Hour is a weekly radio program dedicated to the search for truth in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson.

Nationally acclaimed humanities scholar and award-winning first-person interpreter of Thomas Jefferson, Clay S. Jenkinson, portrays Jefferson on the program, and he answers listener questions while in the persona of our third president.
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