Category: politics

Was the Jefferson Bible just the words of Jesus? Part 2

In the mail Saturday, I received my copy of the Smithsonian edition of the Jefferson Bible. It is a marvelous reproduction of the original on display at the Smithsonian. Here is a picture of one of the pages which is photograph of the original manuscript:

You can’t see the words well but Jefferson cut out the portions of the New Testament he wanted to include in Greek, French, Latin and English. Verses are arranged so that the reader can see how they are translated in each language.

I am interested in the Jefferson Bible because it gives some insight into what Jefferson believed about Jesus. Also, I wanted to inspect the manuscript more closely to address the false claims of David Barton about the Jefferson Bible. In his American Heritage DVD series, Barton said this about Jefferson’s efforts:

What happens is, this little document here is called the Jefferson Bible. We call this the Jefferson Bible and the last 30 years, people have consistently said this is the Scriptures that Jefferson cut out everything with which he disagreed. Well if you go to the front of this work, it doesn’t have the title Jefferson Bible. If you’d used that title with him, he’d have probably punched you out for saying it. The title he gave it is the Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. What he did was he went through and cut out all the red letters of Jesus and pasted them from end to end so he could read the red letters of Jesus without stopping. He’s not what he cut out but what he put in. But why did he do that?

He tells us, he did this twice, he did this in 1804 and he did it again in 1819. He said that he did this to be a missionary tool to evangelize the Indians. Because if we can get them to read the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, it’ll changed their lives. So this was not a work that he turned and cut out everything he disagreed with. It’s a work where he took all the words of Jesus and put them there so you could read the words of Jesus non-stop.

I addressed this claim first in January, and want to expand on that post here. About Jefferson’s effort, Barton said:

What he did was he went through and cut out all the red letters of Jesus and pasted them from end to end so he could read the red letters of Jesus without stopping.

and then, he added:

So this was not a work that he turned and cut out everything he disagreed with. It’s a work where he took all the words of Jesus and put them there so you could read the words of Jesus non-stop.

Barton’s claim that Jefferson “cut out all the red letters of Jesus and pasted them end to end so he could read the red letters of Jesus without stopping” is provably false. There are many red letters which Jefferson omitted. Jefferson wrote in the margin of his work the references to the passages he snipped from the manuscripts. Reviewing my edition, I did not find any references to Jesus’ words in John 14-17. Jefferson included lengthy passages from Mt. 5, and Luke 12 but omitted the lengthy sermons in red letters in the chapters 14-17 of John (see John 14-17 in this online red letter edition of the New Testament). Most of the words in this section of John are words of Jesus. Jefferson omitted them.

Jefferson may have done so because in these passages Jesus speaks of Himself as deity. For instance, in John 14:1-4, Jesus says He is going to prepare a place in heaven and calls God His Father:

14:1-4 – “You must not let yourselves be distressed – you must hold on to your faith in God and to your faith in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s House. If there were not, should I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? It is true that I am going away to prepare a place for you, but it is just as true that I am coming again to welcome you into my own home, so that you may be where I am. You know where I am going and you know the road I am going to take.”

And then John 17: 1-3 proved unreliable as an actual teaching of Jesus to Jefferson:

17:1-3 – When Jesus had said these words, he raised his eyes to Heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son now so that he may bring glory to you, for you have given him authority over all men to give eternal life for all that you have given to him. And this is eternal life, to know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent – Jesus Christ.

Given that Jefferson left out long passages of the words of Jesus, it is clear that David Barton is misleading his audiences when he says Jefferson’s book of teachings of Jesus is all the red letters laid out in order. And when one examines what Jefferson left out (what he considered a “dunghill” from which he extracted “diamonds”), it seems clear that Jefferson believed these passages were not original with Jesus. He told John Adams that his work represented the collection of the real teachings of Jesus, saying:

In extracting the pure principles which he [Jesus] taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurgos, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. 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, such as were professed and acted on by the unlettered Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers, and the Christians of the first century.

If you are interested in seeing for yourself how Jefferson edited the New Testament, I recommend the little manuscript. It is a fascinating piece of history, but it is nowhere near what David Barton says it is.

Related:

Media report: Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill on Parliament’s Agenda Next Week

According to the UG Pulse:

The Anti Homosexuality bill 2009 and the Marriage and Divorce bill are due for debate when parliament resumes business next week.

The two controversial bills that raised public debate during the 8th Parliament are up for consideration when the Business committee of the House sits next week.

In a letter to MPs on the committee from the office of the Clerk to Parliament, the meeting slated for Monday next week is expected to consider the legislative programme for the 3rd meeting of the 1st session of the 9th Parliament.

The Anti-Homosexuality bill 2009, moved by Ndorwa West MP, David Bahati is one of the bills to be considered on the agenda, despite calls from international human rights activists, donors and gays, out rightly rejected the bill.

Also to be considered is the Marriage and Divorce Bill 2009, which is being pushed for by women rights activists to reform and consolidate laws relating to marriage, separation and divorce.

However religious leaders have rejected the bill, noting that the clause that recognizes cohabitation as a form of marriage is in breach of their religious beliefs.

Other bills for consideration are the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Control bill, the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Bill, Anti-Counterfeiting Goods bill, as well as the Companies bill.

If I understand this article correctly, what will happen Monday is that the Business Committee will meet to determine when the bills carried over from the 8th Parliament will be debated. One of those bills carried over is the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

This meeting should be watched closely. The Speaker of the House could delay the bill or she could encourage the members to consider it promptly. I wrote about this process back in October, 2011. At that time, Parliament spokeswoman Helen Kawesa laid out the procedure:

Yesterday, I reported that the Parliament of Ugandavoted to return unfinished bills from the Eighth Session to business in the current session. One of those bills specifically referenced was the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

This morning I spoke with Parliament Spokeswoman, Helen Kawesa, who told me that no date had been set for debate on the anti-gay measure. “The Business Committee will meet to decide what bills are considered. Then they will be listed on the daily Order Paper,” Kawesa explained. The Business Committee is chaired by Speaker of the House Rebecca Kadaga and made up of all other committee chairs. Currently, no date has been set for this committee to consider a schedule for the bills returned from the Eighth Parliament.

I also spoke briefly to Stephen Tashobya, chair of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee. His committee prepared a report on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in May and recommended passage with some minor changes. He had no comment on the status of the anti-gay bill since he has been traveling.

According to Kawesa, the Business committee could recommend that the anti-gay bill go back to committee or it could recommend that the former committee report become the basis for debate in the Parliament. Apparently, the return of the bill to the floor is not automatic. The Speaker has some ability to delay it or expedite it. The decision of the Business committee may signal how quickly the bill will move.

The committee report from Tashobya’s committee left the severe aspects of the bill intact, including the death penalty and life in prison (see an analysis here).

It seems the Parliament is determined to take up the bill over the objections of the Executive branch.

The Donald to endorse Gingrich? UPDATE: Or will he endorse Romney?

One thing you can say for Gingrich – he has created an odd coalition of endorsers.

According to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal report, Donald Trump is set to endorse Gingrich in Las Vegas today. He will join the AFA’s Don Wildmon, Liberty Council’s Mat Staver, gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, and actor Chuck Norris as endorsers.

UPDATE: Now the New York Times is reporting that Trump will endorse Mitt Romney.

 

Gingrich says he worries about poor spending money on gambling while supported by gambling magnate

Really?

According to the Miami Herald:

“At the risk of offending some of my friends who’ve been very helpful,” Gingrich said, “I worry about the degree to which the poor are the most likely to spend a large percentage of their income gambling.”

According to the report, Gingrich did not spell out his views on gambling which is a hot topic in Florida now since at least two companies, including Gingrich’s benefactor – Sheldon Adelson – want to put casinos there.
I wish someone in the press covering his campaign would ask him about the two times when Gingrich supported policies favorable to the gambling industry, but did not give Indians a break on policy involving their casinos.

Gingrich says his relationship with Adelson is about Israel and I believe that is partly true. However, Gingrich has conducted at least one fundraiser in one of Adelson’s casinos and supported at least two causes of importance to the gambling industry.

If Gingrich is worried about the poor and the dollars they spend, then why did he show favor to the gambling industry while Speaker of the House? Is this a new worry?

Related:

Former South African President criticizes Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki criticized MP David Bahati’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill Thursday in Kampala while speaking at an event at Makerere Institute for Social Research.

About the bill’s provisions, Mbeki said:

I mean what would you want? It doesn’t make sense at all. That is what I would say to the MP. What two consenting adults do is really not the matter of law.

Bahati’s responded later to a reporter:

However, Mr Bahati yesterday said the Bill was brought to curb a several issues including inducement, recruitment and funding homosexuality. “His excellency (Mr Mbeki) needs to read the Bill and understand the spirit in which it was brought and the context in which we are talking about,” Mr Bahati said.

Although the Ugandan ambassador to the US recently said the bill was not going to be considered, Bahati seems to believe otherwise.  As far as I can tell, the bill is still “gathering dust” in committee and could still be brought to the floor of Parliament.