These days I am working toward completion of Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims About Our Third President. A prominent focus of the book is David Barton’s new book, The Jefferson Lies. With GJR coming out, I intend to write more about both books going forward.
I have had many headslapping moments reading The Jefferson Lies. One of them is the subject of today’s post. In TJLs, Barton includes a chapter on what is commonly called The Jefferson Bible. In our book, co-author Michael Coulter and I fully explore the development of both of Jefferson’s efforts to extract what Jefferson considered to be the gold from the dross of the Gospels for his own use. The only surviving version of those efforts was titled by Jefferson, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth extracted textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French & Latin. The term “Jefferson Bible” has become a short hand for this book completed sometime between 1820 and 1824 (we describe evidence in the book which seems to place the binding of the Life and Morals of Jesus closer to 1824).
In TJLs, Barton claims that Jefferson did not remove all of the supernatural and miraculous aspects of the Gospels. He claims this was not Jefferson’s intent. Despite the fact that Jefferson said on several occasions that such an extraction was his intent, Barton makes this claim based on passages he says Jefferson included. Most of the passages Barton offers as proof are verses about the afterlife. Truly, Jefferson did believe in an afterlife with rewards and punishments as appropriate. Jefferson did not believe in the atonement of Jesus but rather that good works in this life were necessary for a happy afterlife. In that sense, there is a supernatural element in Jefferson’s extraction. However, Barton includes as evidence of miracles, three miracles from Matthew 9 which are not in either the 1804 or 1820 version. Barton writes:
That abridgement also contained the miraculous resurrection of Jarius’s (sic) daughter (Matthew 9:1), the healing of the bleeding woman (Matthew 9:18-26), and the healing of two blind men (Matthew 9:27-34), all of which are clearly acts of a miraculous or supernatural character.
The footnote for this paragraph leads to Charles Sanford’s book on the religious views of Jefferson. Consulting that book, I find that Sanford does list those verses but when one examines the 1804 and 1820 extractions from Jefferson, Matthew 9 is not included in the 1804 version at all, and in the 1820 version, only Mt. 9:36 (where Jesus was moved with compassion on the people gathered around him) is there.
Apparently, Barton did not check the versions but rather simply accepted the erroneous citation of Sanford. And these are not only verses which Barton includes which were not included. We fully document all of this in the GJR book. There are several prominent instances like this in TJLs — where Barton cites a source but that source turns out to be in error or quite suspicious. When we explore the source, we learn the story is not true or quite implausible.
This observation is relevant to fact checking. Barton and defenders almost always make a point to note how many footnotes he uses while criticizing books with fewer notes. However, many footnotes do not a fact make if the citation is unverified or in error. We may not get all of them in GJR, but we do get some major ones.
Stay tuned…
I’m confused. Were the verses in the final bound 1824 version or are the 1820 & 1824 versions the same thing?
Jefferson completed The Life and Morals of Jesus sometime after 1820. He never disclosed when this was completed. However, he appears to have sent the pages to a binder sometime around 1824. There are only two versions – 1804 and after 1820.
PS – The Matthew 9 verses (except v. 36) were not in either version.
I believe Jesus recognized those maladies in Matt. 9 as psychogenic –hence: “Your faith has healed you.”
I believe Jesus recognized those maladies in Matt. 9 as psychogenic –hence: “Your faith has healed you.”
“The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.” Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
Jefferson, John Adams and Ben Franklin were all friends with and influenced by the thinking of Dr. Joseph Priestley. That influence is on exhibit in the above quote. Priestly, who co-founded the Unitarian church in England, said the authors of the New Testamment “corrupted” Christianity. What he meant was the message of Jesus was sufficient to stand on its own without inventing the supernatural elements – virgin birth, resurrection, the miracles attributed to Jesus, and so forth.
I’m confused. Were the verses in the final bound 1824 version or are the 1820 & 1824 versions the same thing?
Jefferson completed The Life and Morals of Jesus sometime after 1820. He never disclosed when this was completed. However, he appears to have sent the pages to a binder sometime around 1824. There are only two versions – 1804 and after 1820.
PS – The Matthew 9 verses (except v. 36) were not in either version.
“The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.” Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
Jefferson, John Adams and Ben Franklin were all friends with and influenced by the thinking of Dr. Joseph Priestley. That influence is on exhibit in the above quote. Priestly, who co-founded the Unitarian church in England, said the authors of the New Testamment “corrupted” Christianity. What he meant was the message of Jesus was sufficient to stand on its own without inventing the supernatural elements – virgin birth, resurrection, the miracles attributed to Jesus, and so forth.
To believe Jefferson was a Christian is to dismiss the thousands and thousands of hours of research done by real historians over the years. It’s a matter of trusting either professionals an amateur with a divinity degree and an agenda.
Barton’s defenders love his “original source” material. One of Barton’s earlier books features George Washington on the front cover. Washington is on his knees praying for divine intervention, as the story goes, during the winter of 1778 at Valley Forge. It’s a rather famous scene.
But the story is, at best, problematic for real historians. It did not surface until 1806 as part of an effort by an author to cash in on the religious revival in America that started in 1800. What better way to make money than marry George Washington to religion?
In fact while Washington was president he attended a Philadelphia church on a regular basis. But he never took communion and usually left early, much to the chagrin of his wife. The pastor of the church, William White, said “I never saw anything that led me to think Washington was a believer.”
Good to see you clarifying the poisonous distortions that are, alas, David Barton’s stock in trade. In addition to his accounts of Jefferson, I hope you (or someone!) will take a look at the introduction to his book and take apart his absurd account of the shortcomings of academic historians, complete with his own wacky definitions of “poststructuralism” and “deconstructionism.”
To believe Jefferson was a Christian is to dismiss the thousands and thousands of hours of research done by real historians over the years. It’s a matter of trusting either professionals an amateur with a divinity degree and an agenda.
Barton’s defenders love his “original source” material. One of Barton’s earlier books features George Washington on the front cover. Washington is on his knees praying for divine intervention, as the story goes, during the winter of 1778 at Valley Forge. It’s a rather famous scene.
But the story is, at best, problematic for real historians. It did not surface until 1806 as part of an effort by an author to cash in on the religious revival in America that started in 1800. What better way to make money than marry George Washington to religion?
In fact while Washington was president he attended a Philadelphia church on a regular basis. But he never took communion and usually left early, much to the chagrin of his wife. The pastor of the church, William White, said “I never saw anything that led me to think Washington was a believer.”
Good to see you clarifying the poisonous distortions that are, alas, David Barton’s stock in trade. In addition to his accounts of Jefferson, I hope you (or someone!) will take a look at the introduction to his book and take apart his absurd account of the shortcomings of academic historians, complete with his own wacky definitions of “poststructuralism” and “deconstructionism.”
“Apparently, Barton did not check the versions but rather simply accepted the erroneous citation of Sanford.”
Isn’t Barton always claiming that his “expertise” comes from the fact that he has access to copies of the original documents?
“Apparently, Barton did not check the versions but rather simply accepted the erroneous citation of Sanford.”
Isn’t Barton always claiming that his “expertise” comes from the fact that he has access to copies of the original documents?
When did this ‘bright beige’ happen? I’d grown so accustomed to the old website design that it said Throckmorton to me.
Without question, David Barton is the leading history teacher among those who long to hear stories about the Christian founding of America. But now even the ultrafundamentalist WorldView Weekend Foundation has asked the question: David Barton: Historian or Revisionist?
When did this ‘bright beige’ happen? I’d grown so accustomed to the old website design that it said Throckmorton to me.
Without question, David Barton is the leading history teacher among those who long to hear stories about the Christian founding of America. But now even the ultrafundamentalist WorldView Weekend Foundation has asked the question: David Barton: Historian or Revisionist?