Jefferson’s Four Gospels: ‘He Made a Socrates Out of Jesus’

I knew that Thomas Jefferson was a Deist and he rejected the divinity of Christ. And I knew that with his own hand he made for himself an abridged four gospels excised of all miracles. What I did not know was that he considered Saint Paul a “corrupter” of the doctrines of Jesus and that the evangelists were “groveling authors” with “feeble minds.” As far as the Old Testament, Jefferson completely rejected it.  His predecessor, President John Adams, supported him in his disdain for traditional Christian theology by means of his “biblical” research.

Astonishing, too, is that from 1905 to 1950 each incoming Senator was given a copy of the “Jefferson Bible” by the US Government Printing Office. That practice was revived in 1997 through a private organization, the American Book Distributors. Talk about anti-Christian! involvement in politics! “We have no king but Socrates”!

The Washington Post, Richard N. Ostling: It must have been a peculiar sight: The author of the Declaration of Independence, seated in his Monticello mansion, cutting the Bible into pieces.

But such was the pastime of Thomas Jefferson during his last decade, reviving a project he originated while serving as the nation’s third president. Full article is here.