The Jefferson Bible

Thomas Jefferson’s Bible represents a version of Christianity consistent with

Enlightenment thinking and values.

• Anticipated modern revisionism

○ Christ is a mortal sage
○ All the supernatural talk was invented mythology
• All that was left was a purely moral document
• Believed that Christ’s teachings were corrupted by the establishment for a
millennium

What are the major prior values rejected in the Jefferson Bible?

• Rejects the miracle accounts of the gospels

• Physically cut all verses that pertained to miracles, resurrection, and anything
supernatural
○ Virgin birth
○ Christ’s bodily resurrection
○ Miracles of the loaves
○ Walking on water
○ Raising Lazarus
○ Holy Ghost coming to Mary
○ Angels appearing to the shepherds
○ Yes baptism but no the heavens didn’t open and god didn’t descend
down
○
• Rejection of biblical revelation
• Anti-Christian Pro-Jesus
• Against Blind Faith and in favor of reason based belief
• Power of science to explain the world, and to prove the existence of God

What are the major Enlightenment values projected in the Jefferson Bible?

• Principles of freedom could be proclaimed from nature, not from either

human or divine law
○ “we hold these truths to be self evident”
• “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”
• Any religion that eliminated good behaviors the path to salvation merited no
respect
 • Was not arguing against the existence of God, but rather proving the
existence of god not through divine means, but rather scientific and personal
means
• Sprirtual journey must be led by reason, not faith
• Apply scientific principles to the Bible
○ Joshua making the sun stand still
• “your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven”
• Individual reasoning process to determine religious truth
• Religious truth: believed that reason, acting in a marketplace of ideas, that
would lead people to find it.

What Enlightenment thinker that we have read is closest to the views of Thomas
Jefferson?

• John Locke
• Frances Hutcheson
• Knowledge
• Reason
• Freedom of religion
• Wanted to destroy the concept of heresy, the crime of expressing
unauthorized religious thought
○ Because he himself was a heretic, by assembling his bible
○ Believed that knowledge and learning with heresy present was a
danger to the republic
• Discouraging thinking, which was essential for Republicanism, (powerful
church hierarchy) was a great threat to liberty
• He was on a personal spiritual journey that took him outside the mainstream.
 In 1820, Thomas Jefferson compiled his own version of the Bible, physically

cutting supernatural passages and pasting the remaining moral faith based

passages together. As an Enlightenment thinker, Thomas Jefferson questioned the

very foundation on which was the Church was based on. He believed that the

teachings of Jesus Christ were distorted by the establishment for the last millennium

into something that Jesus Christ himself would not even recognize. He thought that

the supernatural elements of the bible were invented mythology by the later Church

establishment to increase its power and influence. Instead, Jefferson’s revision of

the Bible placed an emphasis on Christ as a mortal sage and turned the bible into a

purely moral document. During his lifetime, Thomas Jefferson kept this document a

secret and only shared it with a few close friends because he was afraid of the

backlash from the community. It was the reason why he so strongly supported a

separation of church and state because that allowed for religious freedom and

tolerance. Thomas Jefferson hoped the new republic he helped to create would allow

for individuals to pursue their own religious and spiritual revelations just as he did

with the creation of his Bible.

Jefferson’s Bible was crafted as a rejection of the biblical revelations and the

supernatural elements of the New Testament. With a scissor, he physically went

through his copy of the Bible and cut out those sections. As a result, passages

describing the Virgin birth, Christ’s bodily resurrection, walking on water, and many

others were left out. Anything that pertained to miracles, resurrections and the

supernatural was left out. The resulting Jefferson Bible was a compact book with

only 90 pages. What is left is the moral teachings of Jesus Christ. For example, on

page 39, he included a long passage about the money changers in the temple.
When Jesus went up to Jerusalem and visited the Temple, he saw merchants selling

farm stock and money changers conducting business in the courtyard of the temple.

Jesus was found this wrong and drove everyone out of the temple and gave all

assets leftover to the people who sold the doves. Jesus said, “Take these things

hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.”For Jefferson, the

rejection of biblical revelations did not mean that he was against religion. He was

anti-Christian but pro-Jesus. He favored reason based faith in a God, not blind faith

in the supernatural powers of a God.

Influenced by Enlightenment thinking, Thomas Jefferson believed that the

principles of freedom were rooted in nature and natural law, rather than human or

divine law. The Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas Jefferson, reveals

his Enlightenment values. In the introduction, Jefferson wrote about the “Laws of

Nature and of Nature’s God” and how the people had a natural right to overrule the

government. Before, the legitimacy of the government was granted by the Church

because they could deem the monarchy line divine or not. Thomas Jefferson rejects

that notion by saying that the monarchy does not have a divine right but rather a

natural obligation to serve the people.

Like most other Enlightenment thinkers, Thomas Jefferson was not actually

arguing against the existence of God. He wanted to prove the existence of God

through scientific and personal means rather than divine means. The path to

revelation must be led by reason, not faith. In particular, in Jefferson’s personal

correspondences, he questioned the passage when Joshua made the sun stand still.

He wrote, "You are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of

nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped.”
Jefferson realized that the supernatural passages in the Bible do not have relevance

in an age of reason and the scientific method.

Another Enlightenment value embodied by Jefferson is the individual, personal

path to divine revelation. He believed in the individual reasoning process to

determine religious truth. Jefferson himself was a practitioner of this method

because he modified the Bible to find his own spiritual revelation. It was the reason

he pushed for religious tolerance and the separation of church and state. His

ultimate goal was to be able to live in a society where heresy is not an issue.

Jefferson wanted to live among likeminded and tolerance men, where he could

express his views freely. Unfortunately, in his life time, it did not happen. He kept his

version of the Bible secret and it wasn’t until after his death that the Bible was

discovered.

Thomas Jefferson’s ideals and values were likely to have been influenced by John

Locke. The first