Thursday, June 24, 2010

No, Mr. Beck, Jefferson Did Not Date His Documents "In the Year of Our Lord Christ"

By Chris Rodda. Check it out.

6 comments:

Tom Van Dyke said...

The interesting characteristic of this document is the use of the phrase "in the year of our Lord Christ." Many official documents say "in the year of our Lord," but we have found very few that include the word "Christ." However, this is the explicitly Christian language that President Thomas Jefferson chose to use in official public presidential documents.


Barton overstated his case by using the word "chose" [my emphasis in the original]. It does appear to be a preprinted form document.

King of Ireland said...

This is one of the more absurd arguments that Barton makes. He ignores that Jefferson cut up whole chucks of the Bible and chooses to look at the dating of a document? All this does is give fodder to radical secularists to throw out the more reasoned arguments from the Christian side of this debate. They pigeon hole everyone into being same as him and then poison the well by associating you with him.

Truly disapointing for those of us that want to have a grown up discussion about this.

Tom Van Dyke said...

I agree. Absurd.

Did you know that "The Lord's Prayer"---Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed by thy name, etc.---made the "cut" in the "Jefferson Bible"?

Most folks don't, and would be surprised, I think, including just about all the commenters at the Original Post [OP] in question.

True fact.

Chris Rodda said...

Why would anyone be surprised that the Lord's Prayer made the cut in Jefferson's cut up Bible? Jefferson was leaving in everything that Jesus was reported to have said, and the gospel writers wrote that this prayer was what Jesus said when his disciples asked him how to pray, so it obviously fit Jefferson's criteria for what he was leaving in.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Jefferson was leaving in everything that Jesus was reported to have said

Chris, I'm glad you're keeping up with our blog. I realize you have a constituency, a congregation, whatever you want to call it. I think you and I have reached a certain understanding about how to proceed in public together after our last go-round, person to person. Our mutual friend Mr. Rowe will forward my email to you. I respect your work.

Chris Rodda said...

I try to get back here as often as I can. I just get really busy with my job at MRFF, and barely have time to get my own history posts written, let alone getting around to all the blogs I like to get around to.

And, I definitely agree that there are things we are mutually interested in that we can discuss here.