{"id":39086,"date":"2013-10-07T21:50:34","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T03:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/07\/the-new-testament-desupernaturalized.html"},"modified":"2013-10-09T05:50:19","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T11:50:19","slug":"the-new-testament-desupernaturalized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/07\/the-new-testament-desupernaturalized.html","title":{"rendered":"The New Testament, Desupernaturalized"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jefferson was an interesting fellow. \u00a0Non-historian David Barton's blather notwithstanding, he was probably the closest to an out-and-out atheist as there was among the founding fathers.<\/p>\n

(Who, as a group, defy easy classification, and had beliefs and adherence to different orthodoxies and faithfulness levels all over the map, especially when you consider how their expressed — privately and<\/i> publicly — beliefs changed over the years.)<\/p>\n

But he loved the teachings of Jesus, as much as he hated what he considered the Greek philosophy and priestly\u00a0superstition that had been layered on top of them over the centuries. \u00a0 He wrote to John Adams in 1814 (http:\/\/goo.gl\/c2ZFWQ<\/a>):<\/p>\n

'The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw in the mysticism of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child ; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them; and for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never be explained.'<\/i><\/p>\n

And to Mrs. Samuel T. Smith in 1816 (http:\/\/goo.gl\/dxyv6B<\/a>):<\/p>\n

'My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.'<\/i><\/p>\n

And to Adams again in 1823 (http:\/\/goo.gl\/lqvfVA<\/a>):<\/p>\n

'And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.'<\/i><\/p>\n

One of his pet projects was creating what he considered a purified New Testament, consolidating the Gospels and conveying the life of Jesus and his teachings without any of those "fables" he thought had been latched onto it. \u00a0And now one of those New Testaments, as Jefferson (literally) cut and pasted it, can be read online.<\/p>\n

Very cool.<\/p>\n

(I've previously written about the Jefferson Bible:\u00a0https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/09\/jeffersons-bible-and-david-barton.html<\/a> and\u00a0https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/14\/david-barton-is-a-dolt-no-im-a-historian-edition.html<\/a>)<\/p>\n

(h\/t +<\/span>Les Jenkins<\/a><\/span>)<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Michael Sauers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

Read the Jefferson Bible online<\/a>
\n In 1820 \u2014 six years before his death at the age of 83 \u2014 Jefferson produced a leather-bound, 84-page volume titled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Extracted Textually From the Gospels in G…\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jefferson was an interesting fellow. \u00a0Non-historian David Barton's blather notwithstanding, he was probably the closest to an out-and-out atheist as there was among the founding fathers. (Who, as a group, defy easy classification, and had beliefs and adherence to different orthodoxies and faithfulness levels all over the map, especially when you consider how their expressed … Continue reading “The New Testament, Desupernaturalized”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,108,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-history","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":132691,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/29\/but-some-religious-beliefs-are-more-equal-than-others.html","url_meta":{"origin":39086,"position":0},"title":"But some religious beliefs are more equal than others","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 29-Jan-17 5:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"You can't claim that your law is just about \"protecting religious freedom\" and \"protecting religious beliefs\" when you explicitly state in it[1] what beliefs are worthy of protection:.The sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions protected by this act are the belief or conviction that:(a) Marriage is or should be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27013,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/09\/its-because-your-deeply-held-religious-beliefs-are-nuts-rick.html","url_meta":{"origin":39086,"position":1},"title":"It's because your "deeply-held religious beliefs" are nuts, Rick","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Mar-12 10:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's because your \"deeply-held religious beliefs\" are nuts, RickWhy is Santorum attacked by \"the media\" so often? And by other folk, too? Is it because he's a Christian? Is it because he's deeply religious?While there may be some small element of that present, my suspicion is that the majority of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30356,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/26\/corporate-conscience.html","url_meta":{"origin":39086,"position":2},"title":"Corporate conscience","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Sep-12 12:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've weighed in previously on the irksome idea that pharmacists can dictate what services and medications someone can access, based on their personal conscience (i.e., a pharmacist's moral beliefs trumps those of the person seeking that medication).What's more interesting \/ disturbing in this ruling is that it was applied to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25019,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/01\/discrimination-of-conscience.html","url_meta":{"origin":39086,"position":3},"title":"Discrimination of conscience","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Jan-12 2:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Churches that become dependent on government money are forced to compromise their beliefs. And if they refuse to compromise those beliefs while still taking government money, then the government is compromising the beliefs of other churches that believe differently ... which in turn sets a precedent for those original churches\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133678,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/14\/congressional-shooter-had-a-history-of-violence.html","url_meta":{"origin":39086,"position":4},"title":"Congressional shooter had a history of violence","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Jun-17 12:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Violent nutcasery runs along a different axis than specific political beliefs (as does authoritarianism). While I know a lot of folk who hold similar political beliefs to the suspected shooter (indeed, I hold a lot of the same positions as he reportedly did), none of them advocate violent, murderous activities\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132426,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/23\/religious-freedom-for-atheists-too.html","url_meta":{"origin":39086,"position":5},"title":"Religious Freedom for Atheists, Too","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 23-Dec-16 11:10am","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm glad to see this 1998 US religious freedom law noted to include atheists and agnostics as well. '\"The freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is understood to protect theistic and non-theistic beliefs and the right not to profess or practice any religion.\"'Some folk like to play semantics and suggest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39112,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39086\/revisions\/39112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}