Friday, March 27, 2009

Thomas Jefferson, Radical American Christian – Part 2

In an earlier post on this same topic, I laid out how Thomas Jefferson was a Christian of a particularly American über-Protestant sort, an ill-disciplined individualist. In this post I would like to address a narrower question: what did Jefferson make of Jesus? Who was the Jesus of Jefferson?

What I would like to persuade you of is that the Jesus of Jefferson is the Jesus on trial before Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod: the Jesus of whom it is said he is the son of God, King of the Jews, and worker of miracles, and who denies none of this but asks in response: “who do you think I am?”

My principal evidence for this is not short passages selected from letters, as is usually used in cases like this, but rather Jefferson’s two Bible compilations. The first point I would like to make, because it seems so poorly understood, is that Jefferson made two compilations, not one: the Philosophy of Jesus in ~1804, and the Life and Morals of Jesus in ~1820. Conflating these two is the root of much confusion, on both sides of the Christian Nation dispute.

Of the first compilation (PoJ), all we have remaining are the few pages written in Jefferson’s own hand (title page, contents and index) and the remnant bibles from which the extracted verses had been cut (part of Joshua Cohen’s collection). The actual pages containing the Bible verses selected, in the order laid out in the table of contents, have not survived, and it is even possible that they were never completed. In a letter of Jefferson’s to Priestley, 29 Jan 1804, he acknowledges having started the project, but whereas he understands that Priestley must have done the same in preparation for his comparison of Jesus to the ancient philosophers, he rejoices that “I shall now get the thing done by better hands”. I could easily see Jefferson abandoning the final assembly, if he expected a better version of the same to be published by Priestley (it never was). But he clearly did all the scholarship; choosing passages, order of presentation, and even writing out the title page, contents, and index. The intellectual die had been cast. All this said, in Jefferson’s letter to Charles Thomson of 9 January 1816 he claims to have completed PoJ; I am willing to believe that Jefferson might misstate such things rather than explain that he accomplished 90% of the task but then abandoned it, not that it matters.

The second compilation (LaM) has passed down to us complete and bound, a harmony of the gospels in four languages (English, French, Latin, and Greek) in parallel columns. Of this it is generally said (I paraphrase from many sources) that Jefferson cut out all the miraculous elements to reveal the underlying code of morals, and that this amounts to antipathy to hypocrisy, affirmation of the Golden Rule, pacifism (turn the other cheek), admonition not to judge nor bear grudges, exhortation to modesty, etc.

This is all true, of course, in a narrow sense: Jesus does, in fact, teach these things. But this is not really what you get out of LaM; this is not the teaching of the Jesus of Jefferson (JoJ), this is distortion of JoJ by secular cherry-picking. But before diving into the teachings of JoJ, let me defend the difference between the two compilations.

The first compilation claims, on its title page, to be for the benefit of the Indians, and I see no reason to doubt this (later Jefferson would claim, in some of his letters, that PoJ was for his own use, but that might just be the rationalization of Jefferson after he decided not to go forward with publishing PoJ). The timing would fit the Indians as the intended audience, too: Jefferson’s famous treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians (in which he committed US government funds to finance evangelism) was signed in December of 1803, within months of the likely preparation of PoJ. The second compilation has no similar statement of purpose, but the preparation in four languages is fairly conclusive: how many people did Jefferson know (apart from himself) who could make use of a quadrilingual harmony of the gospels? I think it’s fairly clear that LaM was for Jefferson’s personal use. If this is so, then PoJ gives us Jefferson’s view of the civic religion (what Indians should learn to join the American polity), while LaM tells us something of Jefferson’s own religious views.

This distinction is borne out by the editorial differences between the two compilations: PoJ is in English, LaM is quadrilingual; PoJ has narrative unity, LaM has redundant presentation of the same material from each of the synoptics; PoJ contains explicit claims by Jesus to be the Son of Man, LaM poses the question of Jesus’ nature but does not put the answer on Jesus’ lips, in PoJ Jesus directs his disciples to perform miracles for the benefit of the people, in LaM all references to miracles are ancillary, etc.

But if LaM is for Jefferson’s purposes, what are those purposes? I submit that even a cursory examination of the text reveals that it is not a system of morals, despite Jefferson’s claims in his various letters that this would be what you got if you cleansed the gospels of all extraneous elements. Jefferson never intended to publish his Bible(s), and so he was free to bend the truth as to what was actually in them. Adler’s introduction to the US government edition of LaM mentions that even Jefferson’s family did not know of the existence of the Bible(s) until after his death, upon which they learned that he studied it/them nightly. If this is true (and I have no reason to think otherwise), then Jefferson would have spent more intellectual energy wrestling with the question of Jesus than with any other intellectual project in his life, including Monticello or the Declaration of Independence.

But to what end? Examination of the text convinces me that the answer is to be found in Jefferson’s advice given to Peter Carr, his ward and de facto son (excerpted at length in my previous post): Jefferson wants to determine the authority of Jesus from internal evidence of his teaching, rather than from his claims to authority or his signs as evidence of authority. If Jesus is who he is said to be (who he said he was), then his teaching should, in its wisdom and sublimity, be convincing enough; the clergy may need miracles to drive home the point that Jesus teaches with authority, but the enlightened man of intellect can, like the audiences of Mt. 7:28-29 (LaM 3:63-64) and Mk 1:22 (LaM 1:48), detect the authoritative message on its face.

To this end, Jefferson prepared LaM, a compilation without distractions like the genealogy of Jesus (present in PoJ), and without any miracles as rhetorical devices for establishing Jesus’ authority, but admitting otherwise that Jesus performed miracles, e.g. the matter-of-fact discussion of whether Jesus violated the Sabbath by performing a healing (Jn 7:21-23, LaM 7:57-59), and Herod’s sincere hope of witnessing a miracle (Lk 23:8, LaM 16:61). Jefferson wasn’t a skeptic out to “naturalize” or “rationalize” Jesus, he was just a sincere inquirer seeking to look past the shallow arguments of the sort that “Jesus performed miracles, so what he said must be true” to find deeper evidence of Jesus’ authority. Focusing on internal evidence is the point of the quadrilingual presentation, and of the inclusion of redundant versions of stories and parables presented in multiple synoptic gospels: Jefferson was engaged in what we today would call textual criticism, and for this he needed the benefit of the original Greek and the best opinions of multiple learned translators, and he was willing to sacrifice narrative unity in the process.

When reading LaM (available here) it is good to keep in mind the following question: “where is the diamond in this passage?” For in Jefferson’s famous phrase, he is in the business of pulling diamonds from a dung-hill. Each passage selected for LaM has passed the “diamond test”; it is relevant for understanding the true teaching of Jesus as Jefferson understood it. Thus, each passage tells us not only about Jesus but also about Jefferson. So what passes the diamond test? What does JoJ teach?

First, as to the question of Jesus himself: with Jefferson editing away the resurrection, LaM ends on a cliffhanger, as it were, with the unanswered but all-important questions. Caiaphas asks Jesus whether he is the Christ, and the elders ask whether he is the Son of God; Jesus answers that he could just as well ask the question of Caiaphas, and that the elders say so (Lk 22:67-70, LaM 16:40-43). Pilate asks whether Jesus is King of the Jews, and Jesus acknowledges a kingdom, but not of this world (Jn 18:33-36, LaM 16:51-54). In the lead-in to this finale, Jesus makes a specific claim of salvation, and implies he is the Son of Man (Lk 19:9-10, LaM 11:51-52); cryptically claims to be the Son of Man who is to be glorified, and whose death will bring life to others (Jn 12:20-24, LaM 12:9-13); and gives a parable in which his role is that of the Son of God, about to be killed (Mk 12:1-9, LaM 12:26-36).

In myriad other passages, JoJ suggests that there is something special about himself, e.g. LaM 10:63-67 (Lk 10:38-42, Mary and Martha), LaM 15:3-8 (Mk 14:3-8, anointment and preparation for death, “ye have the poor with you always”), LaM 8:20-24 (Jn 10:11-14,16, the Good Shepherd), LaM 2:20 (Mt 5:17, Jesus to fulfill prophecy), LaM 4:3-5 (Mt 11:28-30, “Take my yoke upon you”), LaM 4:7-13 (Lk 7:37-43, Jesus’ forgiveness saves a sinner), LaM 6:12 (Lk 5:32, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners”), LaM 6:17 (Mt 13:54, “these mighty works”), LaM 7:40-46 (Jn 7:2-8 “my time is not yet come”), LaM 12:2-3 (Mt 21:2-3, authority to take).

JoJ also suggests that there is something special about his disciples, e.g. LaM 2:11-12 (Mt 5:11-12, it is good to be persecuted for Jesus’ sake), LaM 6:28-31 and 7:33-39 (Mt 10:12-16 and Lk 10:5-8,10-12, rejection of Jesus’ disciples is worse than Sodom), and about his time (Lk 12:56, LaM 4:67).

As for morality, JoJ teaches that to reach the Kingdom of God, Jesus must be followed without compromise (LaM 6:1-6, Lk 9:57-62, also LaM 9:19, Lk 14:20, and LaM 11:21, Mt 19:21); that God has elected the saved, and the sign of election is faith (LaM 10:55-56, Lk 18:7-8); the saved are chosen (LaM 12:51, Mt 22:14); we are saved by receiving the word (LaM 5:33-38, Mt 13:18-23); we are all evil (LaM 3:46, Mt 7:11) and cannot save ourselves (LaM 11:25-26, Mt 19:25-26); God’s justice is unfair and we must abase ourselves before God (LaM 11:35-40, Mt 20:9-14, LaM 9:57-60, Lk 15:29-32, LaM 7:8-9, Mt 18:12-13, LaM 9:35, Lk 15:7); the standard of righteousness is impractically high (LaM 2:23, Mt 5:20); it is not enough to obey as commanded, we must also serve (LaM 10:34-37, Lk 17:7-10); we must put our relationship with God first, and our relations to other people subordinate (LaM 8: 25-28, Lk 10:25-28, LaM 12:71-77, Mk 12:28-33 & Mt 22:40); it is God, rather than our victims, whose forgiveness cancels our sin, if only we forgive others (LaM 8:41, Lk 11:4, LaM 3:12, Mt 6:12, LaM 7:16-28, Mt 18:23-35, LaM 10:61-62, Lk 18:13-14) – note also the suggestive connection between God’s forgiveness here and Jesus’ forgiveness mentioned above.

So where does this leave us?

None of this proves that Jefferson ultimately believed any specific doctrine about Jesus, but it definitely shows that the Jesus whose teachings Jefferson so diligently studied was no Deist, and taught no naturalist or rationalist religion. This was Christianity with a fig leaf covering the most blatant claims to deity of Jesus, but with the question placed unavoidably in front of the reader. There is no way to study LaM in detail and not confront the challenge of determining who, or what, Jesus ultimately was.

This, of course, is entirely in keeping with Jefferson’s advice to Peter Carr (mentioned and linked above), where Jefferson insisted that forming an opinion about Jesus is one of the things that each of us must do. Jefferson is, in that sense, perfectly in keeping with my description of him as an extreme American protestant: tradition and the learned clergy are out the window, and each man is left alone to confront Jesus through scripture. Each of us can interpret scripture differently, but the one choice we must not make is to ignore Jesus, for the last thing we want is for him to ignore us.

To the criticism that I am reading too much into details here, I would reply that on the contrary, I have only scratched the surface of what must be read in much greater detail still. Jefferson laid out his quadrilingual parallel synoptically redundant harmony precisely in order to support pursuit of the slightest nuance in meaning of each and every word or verse. To do justice to LaM would require years of detailed study, which is precisely what Jefferson gave it, in keeping with American bibliocentric protestantism.

32 comments:

Our Founding Truth said...

None of this proves that Jefferson ultimately believed any specific doctrine about Jesus, but it definitely shows that the Jesus whose teachings Jefferson so diligently studied was no Deist, and taught no naturalist or rationalist religion.>

Interesting. This should get some comments.

bpabbott said...

Kristo: "Jefferson never intended to publish his Bible(s), and so he was free to bend the truth as to what was actually in them."

I infer that yours and Jefferson's context is different. Jefferson did not necessarily intend that his view was to be accepted as doctrine by all others (which may not be what you intended). He compile a the Jefferson Bible for "Jefferson".

Kristo: "None of this proves that Jefferson ultimately believed any specific doctrine about Jesus, but it definitely shows that the Jesus whose teachings Jefferson so diligently studied was no Deist"

You'll need to define what *you* mean by "Deist" ... if Jefferson has defined his understanding of Deism (I've missed it if he has), I'd appreciate seeing that as well.

I'll point out that an atheist can admire the moral teachings of Jesus and even aspire to live up to them ... and yet an atheist is still far left of a Deist.

I am pleased in this moment to agree with OFT. I hoope for some interesting comments.

Nice post!

p.s. "Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone."
-- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, 11 January 1817

Kristo Miettinen said...

Hi Ben! Hi OFT!

Thanks for the comments.

As for Deism, I wrote a post on the topic here [The link won't paste from openoffice - how do I embed a hyperlink in a comment? The reference is to the post on Providence]. More generally, the way the term was used in the 17th and 18th centuries described a sort of natural religion, universally accessible. Many Deists of the era would maintain that Christian revelation was consistent with this universal religion, accessible to human reason, and therefore shared by all mankind and through all history, but they would deny that Christian revelation was necessary, and within Christian revelation would deny whatever did not sit properly with reason.

Anyway, much of the morality of JoJ would not count as Deist, on even the most liberal interpretation. The God of JoJ is too engaged with us, too interested in a direct personal relationship, and places our relationship to him above our relationships in this world. This is not a Deist image of God. Note that I am talking about JoJ, not TJ, so Ben's point that even an atheist can admire Jesus' moral teachings (which I dispute – see the morality that I found in LaM above) is irrelevant, unless you want to assert that Jesus was an atheist.

As for Jefferson's “context”, what I am hinting at in various passages in the post is that I think Jefferson was fibbing in various of his letters regarding his Bible compilations. There are minor inconsistencies, like various accounts of how many evenings it took to prepare PoJ, all of which I suspect are underestimates unless he actually abandoned the project (I assembled PoJ for my own use from the list of contents and an online KJV bible; it took me quite a while even with modern technology, and with the benefit of the table of contents given to me by TJ). But there are other problems too, like the question of for whom PoJ was prepared, the reference in his letter to Priestley of working with both English and Greek Bibles (PoJ was only in English), the suggestion in Adams' letters to TJ that as of the summer of 1813 the project was still unfinished, etc.

But I don't want to pin anything on TJ, except this: in many letters, he says that what you get when you pull the diamonds from the evangelists' dung-hill is a system of morals. He praises this system in various exaggerated ways, but in so doing he conceals a blatant fact that we can see, having the benefit of the texts of PoJ and LaM, which were denied to TJ's correspondents: the Jesus of Jefferson teaches Christianity, both as religion and as morality, and not just a naturalist system of morals.

The religious fanatics may not have been the only ones from whom TJ was hiding his religious inquiries; I am obliquely suggesting that he may also, for whatever reasons, have been hiding his extended struggle with Christianity from his liberal friends.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Kristo,

Good job on the research. I am one of those who might argue you are reading too much into the account. Might I suggest using other of Jefferson's writings as a Rosetta Stone in interpreting these two documents. Because in many of them he just comes out and says what he believes about Jesus.

For instance, in his letter to William Short, October 31, 1819 --

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/jefferson_short.html

-- Jefferson explicitly lists the following on what he rejects:

“The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, &c.”

Or to Thomas B. Parker, May 15, 1819:

“My fundamental principle would be the reverse of Calvin’s, that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power.”

Kristo Miettinen said...

Hi Jon!

As I've said before, I see Jefferson as winding up a semi-Pelagian, and Pelagius a Christian (albeit a heretic), ergo I see Jefferson also as Christian (albeit of a radical American sort).

1819 is before Jefferson really wrestles with JoJ through LaM; I don't claim that he ever changed his mind, but I do suggest that he didn't dismiss the challenge either. Jefferson felt the assault of Christ on his conscience; whether he finally succumbed or not I won't know until I meet him (or not), in one of two destinations.

BTW, the very letter that you cite to me is a great example of TJ quite possibly fibbing. Look at this passage: "The last I attempted too hastily some twelve or fifteen years ago. It was the work of two or three nights only, at Washington, after getting through the evening task of reading the letters and papers of the day. But with one foot in the grave, these are now idle projects for me."

Now I gave LaM a date of ~1820 in my post, but the range of scholarly opinion on the matter is from 1816 to 1820, with 1819 the most common date. In any case, TJ brushing his Bible project off as now being idle for him is either false (if LaM was already done or at least underway on 10/31/1819) or else soon to take a revolutionary turn.

As for your interpretation of what TJ does not believe (that's not quite what he says, but I'll let that pass), note e.g. that TJ makes a very common mistake, referring to "the immaculate conception of Jesus". It was Mary, not Jesus, whose conception is taught by some branches of Christianity to be immaculate. TJ is just putting his ignorance on full display (as he also routinely does in misrepresenting Trinitarianism as belief in three Gods). Other things that TJ says there I agree with, e.g. that Jesus did not teach the Trinity - that is a dogma that was developed by the church to protect people from being tricked into error by plausible arguments that can be constructed on a biblical basis.

Jefferson threw alot out the window with tradition and the clergy, and it shows. But my argument has never been that Jefferson was a Christian like me, rather that he was a radical American protestant of a sort that fit into the times in which he lived (albeit fit in at the fringe), when American Christianity was decidedly unorthodox.

My specific claim in the post is that Christianity as both a revealed religion and an irrational unnatural moral system survives Jefferson's razorblade intact, and Jefferson knew it. This would have been a troubling revelation for him, challenging him to come to grips with Jesus' true message.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Well, you spent a lot more time with the "Jefferson of Jesus" than I have, Kristo, but you asked for input, so here goes.

For one thing, it certainly appears that Jefferson spent a helluva lot of time on the Bible. it was certainly not just any book. I think of John Locke as well, spending his last days on earth poring over Paul's epistles. Why, we must ask.

And his advice to Peter Carr indicates Jefferson wasn't an "advocate" against the Bible, insisting young Carr do his own investigation; Jefferson shied away from evangelizing his views and shared them only with a limited circle who were barking up the same tree, apparently excluding even his own family.

I think an important point was opened by Lori Stokes' previous post, that biblical scholarship and the recovery of the earlier Greek texts was not used to disprove the Bible, but to recover it.

Therefore, the Bible could still even be infallible once it was recovered from the 1000+ years of clerics, theologians and other miscreants who exegesicized the Trinity and other stuff.

We must remember that the non-Trinitarians used the Bible itself in rejection of the Trinity!

So too, as Jon points out in Jefferson's May 15, 1819 to Parker, TJ embraces salvation by works. Not Calvinism or orthodox Christianity, but consistent with that other biblical theology, Judaism.

But that Jefferson had harsh words for Judaic theology gives weight to Brad Hart's contention that Jefferson saw indeed saw himself as a "Christian restorationist," as Judaism itself needed "correction" by Christ, which I seem to recall Jefferson explicitly writes somewhere.

Your observation that Jefferson still leaves in some references to Jesus' miracles [healing on the Sabbath, for instance] is novel and interesting, and calls into question the "common knowledge" that the Jefferson Bible proves Jefferson rejected Christ's miracles [or miracles in general].

John Locke's Discourse on Miracles continually [and repetitively] argues that Christ's miracles were necessary for the common folk to accept the authority of Jesus' moral teachings. As Jefferson was a consummate admirer of Locke, we would expect TJ to note somewhere his disagreement with Locke on such a fundamental point. Perhaps he does, but I'm not aware of it.

To close, your point that Christianity as moral system is "an irrational unnatural moral system" deserves consideration as well, that in the end, it could not have been derived by man and his unassisted reason. I believe I quoted John Adams to this effect, but can't for the life of me remember where to recover the quote.

Mr. Rowe often takes what Jefferson, Adams and others from the Founding period call "corruptions" to say they believed the Bible was "partially inspired." But this may be too great a liberty.

If proper Biblical analysis, aided by the recovery of the Greek texts, could restore the Bible to its uncorrupted form, the Bible could then indeed be the literal Word of God, more than simply "partially" inspired. This could have been Jefferson's project. We cannot ask him, of course, but it's possible he didn't even understand his own project that way himself.

Regardless, the inordinate amount of time and care he took with the Bible certainly suggests Jefferson held that book in particular with a certain, I dunno...reverence.

A very exciting hypotheisis, Kristo, and I shall keep it in mind as I read and reread Jefferson in the future. We'll give it a roadtest.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Mr. Rowe often takes what Jefferson, Adams and others from the Founding period call "corruptions" to say they believed the Bible was "partially inspired." But this may be too great a liberty.

One of my specific reasons for this claim is that Joseph Priestley, their spiritual mentor who coined the term "corruptions of Christianity" (part of the title of one of Priestley's most notable books) specifically defines those corruptions as original sin, the trinity, incarnation, atonement and plenary inspiration of the Bible. It's that last one that's the kicker.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Well, I don't want to detract from Kristo's post by getting off on tangents. But I believe that "plenary inspiration of the Bible" means even the "corruptions" are inspired. I believe Kristo touches on that and the focus of my reply is on just that point.

To "restore" the Bible from its corruptions could still have Jefferson doing The Lord's work, recapturing the Word of God from those bastardly clerics. We know how Jefferson felt about clerics, and I'd add that his reluctance to "evangelize" his beliefs to innocent young minds could be attributed to not wanting to become a cleric himself. Clerics are tyrants of the mind.

Jonathan Rowe said...

To "restore" the Bible from its corruptions could still have Jefferson doing The Lord's work, recapturing the Word of God from those bastardly clerics. We know how Jefferson felt about clerics, and I'd add that his reluctance to "evangelize" his beliefs to innocent young minds could be attributed to not wanting to become a cleric himself. Clerics are tyrants of the mind.

Well, as Dr. Frazer would put it, Jefferson, J. Adams and some others were so confident in their own reason, that they thought their "reason" gave them the ability to determine for themselves which parts of the Bible were valid and which weren't.

His thesis is written with few personal observations, more descriptive and scholarly. But he does note he finds this aspect of their theology to be, at times, astoundingly arrogant.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Yes, I caught that arrogance where at one point Jefferson says he's a materialist [and quotes Locke, as memory serves], and disagrees with Jesus for having a spiritual metaphysics. As if Jefferson and Jesus are equals.

You have a great point here, although I believe Kristo's arguing that Jefferson moved on from that intransigence, or arrogance, and gave the Bible a more reverent study in his later years.

I can't recall the dates, but your objection should certainly be accounted for.

Our Founding Truth said...

Kristo:that Jesus did not teach the Trinity

This is highly debatable, as I don't have my bible in front of me, but Jesus said He would send the Holy Spirit, absolutely referring to the Holy Spirit as a person, as well as the entire Bible teaches the Holy Spirit inspired it, and is equal to Jesus.

that is a dogma that was developed by the church to protect people from being tricked into error by plausible arguments that can be constructed on a biblical basis.>

The Church did not write the Dead Sea Scrolls(dated at least 110bc), I've seen them personally, they are trinitarian to the core; the alexandrian text at that.

My specific claim in the post is that Christianity as both a revealed religion and an irrational unnatural moral system>

Paul says Christianity is totally rational and is our reasonable service. Sin is not rational, it's the second most powerful force in the universe.

Your observation that Jefferson still leaves in some references to Jesus' miracles [healing on the Sabbath, for instance] is novel and interesting, and calls into question the "common knowledge" that the Jefferson Bible proves Jefferson rejected Christ's miracles [or miracles in general].>

This is very interesting indeed. Is Jefferson contradicting himself?

Kristo Miettinen said...

Hi Tom!

I don't claim any originality here, but it is the sort of research that you cannot do in 5 minutes with Google. It takes reading LaM (and PoJ, though I make less of that here) with pen and highlighter, plus knowledge of Christianity to realize what is being said in the parables, etc.

That's alot to ask of people, not because of the length (you can get through it in an evening) but ultimately because of its deep Christianity. Reading LaM and pausing after every dozen verses or so to think about what is it that you really just read is spiritually challenging to an unbeliever, or to one struggling with sincere doubt.

Well, I do guess I have a point of originality, but it is one I ultimately cannot prove, for dearth of evidence either way: that Jefferson was in the business of lying about his cage match with Jesus, and also about how it turned out. He wanted no witnesses to his engagement, at least none of the sort who would be pleased to learn he is studying the Word and would have offered their sincere but unwelcome assistance in understanding it.

As Jon so often puts it, TJ thought his own rationality was up to the task, unaided. And as I pointed out in the post, scripture mentions Jewish audiences who successfully perceived the authority of the teaching on its face, so why shouldn't an educated enlightened man be able to do the same?

I mention this because I think you're conceding too much when you say “Jefferson shied away from evangelizing his views and shared them only with a limited circle who were barking up the same tree”. I think it distinctly possible that Jefferson was putting on as much of a facade to his friends barking up the wrong tree as to his congregation barking up that other tree. Jefferson probably had no firm opinion to evangelize, and so his non-evangelism needs no further explanation than that the struggle with Jesus was ongoing. The rest may just have been calculated to give him the intellectual elbow room he needed to tackle the task all alone, in the finest ill-disciplined individualist radical protestant style.

Apropos of Lori Stokes' previous post, Jefferson was genuinely engaged when he found a kindred spirit taking on the Bible as some sort of intellectual project, e.g. his correspondence ~1808 with Charles Thomson, secretary of the first Continental Congress, who prepared a fresh translation of the Septuagint.

I don't think we can make too much of the Bible possibly being infallible once “recovered”; I think it better to stretch the definition of Christian to those so centered on Jesus (or his message) that they elevate the Bible (as the first but perhaps not only body of evidence about Jesus and his message) to a privileged position in their lives and communities.

TJ's inclusion of works (he usually balances works with God in describing that to which he trusts his salvation) need not be interpreted in Jewish terms; I recall that you're Catholic so I won't go there (in this forum I wouldn't anyway, but that is an audience I often engage elsewhere, offline), but Pelagius was solidly Christian (heretic too, of course), and there seems to be nothing in Jefferson that cannot be found in stronger terms in Pelagius. As long as Jefferson sought his religion in the New Testament I would prefer to interpret him as a radical (and possibly heretical) Christian.

As for Brad's term, I have pointed out before that "Christian restorationist" sounds an awful lot like “protestant”, so I'd prefer to use the established term unless it has some glaring defect.

I do believe that Jefferson rejected Christ's miracles, but not in a naturalist “miracles are impossible” sense, but rather in an enlightenment “God's message should be discernible to the intellect alone” sense – Jefferson rejected miracles as a rhetorical device. I think that as an enlightenment snob, Jefferson could quite well agree with the claim that “Christ's miracles were necessary for the common folk to accept the authority of Jesus' moral teachings”, he just wouldn't count himself among those common folk.

As for Jon's and your exchange on Jefferson's (and others') “arrogance”, actually I wouldn't say he ever moved on. That arrogance is just woven into the ill-disciplined individualist radical American protestantism of which Jefferson was an extreme example. What I would say, however, is that while many in their self-confidence can move on, and leave Jesus and the Bible behind them, Jefferson never could. Jefferson shows all the signs of feeling what I call the assault of Jesus upon his conscience.

OFT,

As for the Trinity, I would agree with you that all of the elements of the trinity can be found in Jesus' teaching. For instance, in the post I pointed out the equivalence of Jesus' forgiveness and God's forgiveness. All I'm saying is that Jesus never connected the dots, or if he did we have no record of it, e.g. no “parable of the Trinity”.

It took the church many centuries to connect the dots. That doesn't mean that the church was ignorant of the point all that time, but rather only that appreciation of it was not universal, and it was not elevated as a teaching point to be brought to the attention of all.

The development of church doctrine, to include the doctrine of the Trinity, was a fairly well-documented historical process that took about 600 years, and culminated in what we today call “orthodoxy”. It is all, to the best of our knowledge, rooted in Jesus and scripture, but reason had to be applied to premises teased from scripture to give form to the system of beliefs. Jesus left us no catechism, those we had to make for ourselves.

As to the rationality of Christian morality, consider forgiveness. Let us assume a simplified world with three people, A, B, and C. A commits a sin against B, B commits a sin against C, C commits a sin against A, and the three of them meet to discuss it all. Some forgiveness may or may not occur among the three of them, and God blows the whistle. Time is up, step forward to be judged. The standard of judgment is sinlessness, and past sins can be erased by forgiveness. So what forgiveness must occur to erase what sin?

Reason would seem to suggest that if I steal your wallet, then you have the power to forgive me (or not). If this isn't how forgiveness works, then what possibly could the word mean? But this is not the Christian message! Christ teaches that if I steal your wallet, I don't need your forgiveness to erase my sin, instead God will erase my sin if I forgive those who have sinned against me (and place my faith in God as the source of my salvation). In our hypothetical world, the sin of B against C is erased by forgiving the sin of A against B, which forgiving does not erase the sin of A against B, the very sin being forgiven! I think that the enlightened skeptics on this board would agree that this is highly irrational.

As to your closing question, I don't know which contradiction you have in mind, but I have suggested that Jefferson may have lied to conceal the essential Christianity of his Bible from his more liberal correspondents (the only ones to whom he admitted its existence in the first place).

Brad Hart said...

Kristo:

Excellent post. I read it twice to make sure I got it all.

I think a lot of what you point out fits with my personal belief that Thomas Jefferson was a CHRISTIAN RESTORATIONIST. I've done a couple of posts on this in the past, so I'll refer you to those if you are interested:

http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2008/07/thomas-jefferson-christian.html

Here are a couple Jefferson quotes on this matter:

"I make you my acknowledgement for the sermon on the Unity of God, and am glad to see our countrymen looking that question in the face. it must end in a return to primitive Christianity"

And:

"The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable thinkers...Happy in the prospect of a restoration of primitive Christianity, I must leave to younger athletes to encounter and lop off the false branches which have been engrafted into it by the mythologists of the middle and modern ages."

And finally:

""I trust with you that the genuine and simple religion of Jesus will one day be restored: such as it was preached and practised by himself. very soon after his death it became muffled up in mysteries, and has been ever since kept in concealment from the vulgar eye"

Kristo Miettinen said...

Hi Brad!

We've discussed the "Christian restorationist" label before. Do you have an answer to the question of why we don't just call such folks protestants?

Restoration of a prior, simpler, purer state of the faith was a common theme in the writings of the reformers... what nuance do you intend with your neologism?

Brad Hart said...

Kristo writes:

We've discussed the "Christian restorationist" label before. Do you have an answer to the question of why we don't just call such folks protestants?


An excellent point, but I think the term RESTORATIONIST can apply to more than just Protestantism. For example, a number of enthusiastic RESTORATION-centered religions began to spring up all across America during the early part of the 1800s, which were hardly Protestant in doctrine. A few examples would be:

*Ann Lee and the Shakers
*Jemima Wilkinson and the Community of the Publick Universal Friend
*Joseph Smith and the Mormons
*The "seeker" movements
*The New Israelites Movement

I get what you are saying, and perhaps you are right. What gives me pause, however, is Jefferson's tendency to distance himself from many of the Protestant faiths of his day. Let's also not forget this quote:

"My fundamental principle would be the reverse of Calvin's, that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power."

Now, I know he's only illustrating his disgust with the whole Calvinist/grace concept, but this seems to be a recurrent theme with Jefferson. He questioned and attacked a large number of Protestant doctrines during his life.

Perhaps you are right. Maybe Jefferson is simply referring to a traditional Protestant belief.

Or perhaps it's indicative some something deeper?

bpabbott said...

Kristo: "We've discussed the "Christian restorationist" label before. Do you have an answer to the question of why we don't just call such folks protestants?"

Well for one,

From Wikipedia: In the United States, Restorationism, sometimes called Christian primitivism, refers to the belief held by various religious movements that pristine or original Christianity should be restored, while usually claiming to be the source of that restoration. Such groups teach that this is necessary because Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians introduced defects into Christian faith and practice, or have lost a vital element of genuine Christianity.
[emphasis mine]

Brad Hart said...

Ben:

Thanks! That was my understanding of Christian Restorationism as well. Something beyond Catholic and Protestant Christianity.

Tom Van Dyke said...

"Happy in the prospect of a restoration of primitive Christianity..."---Jefferson

Kristo, I got a better appreciation for Brad's Jefferson-as-restorationist hypothesis as a result of your post.

In short, the Reformation didn't go back far enough. Not only back past Augustine or Nicea, but even before Paul's epistles!

Jefferson argues elsewhere that if the early churches that Paul addressed his epistles to---the Corinthians, the Ephesians, Galacticans, Columbians, Philipinos, what have you---were already truly Christian, you could be a Christian without Pauline theology and certainly without a New Testament, which hadn't even been invented yet!

We're talkin' primitive here, like Americans without cellphones if we can remember back that far.

Brad Hart said...

TVD writes:

We're talkin' primitive here, like Americans without cellphones if we can remember back that far.

Indeed...VERY primitive. I doubt there are even records from such a time!

Yes, this is essentially what Jefferson was getting at when he mentions "primitive Christianity" and "restoration." At least that is what I believe he is saying.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that Jefferson had a "healthy" dislike for the Apostle Paul...at least that is what historian Edwin Gaustad suggests in his religious biography of Jefferson entitled, Sworn on the Altar of God. As Gaustad states on Pp. 113 of his book:

Jefferson thought less highly of miracles than did Priestley, he had no interest in or concern about a bodily resurrection, and he found it easier to dismiss the writings of the apostle Paul than Priestley did[my emphasis].

Gaustad makes some additional references to Jefferson's disliking the Apostle Paul. I will try to dig them up.

The link to this page of Sworn of the Altar of God can be found here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=jZsvTcwV2wwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=sworn+on+the+altar+of+god#PPA113,M1

Our Founding Truth said...

Hey Kristo:

Are you active duty Capt?

OFT

Our Founding Truth said...

Kristo:It took the church many centuries to connect the dots. That doesn't mean that the church was ignorant of the point all that time, but rather only that appreciation of it was not universal, and it was not elevated as a teaching point to be brought to the attention of all.

I'm fairly sure early church fathers: Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius, etc. said Jesus was God, and affirmed inerrancy; meaning the manuscripts(Paul's Epistles) the churches had at the time clearly said Jesus God and equal with God. These teachings were obviously taught to the Christians who were hunted down and killed, as well as the admonition to read the scriptures for themselves, whereby Jesus' Deity is obviously seen.

Jesus' deity seems affirmed throughout history. If you mean the catholic church, and their beliefs, that's another story, of which I, nor the framers, have a concern with. The framers were anti-catholic for many viable reasons.

Tom:Jefferson argues elsewhere that if the early churches that Paul addressed his epistles to---the Corinthians, the Ephesians, Galacticans, Columbians, Philipinos, what have you---were already truly Christian, you could be a Christian without Pauline theology and certainly without a New Testament, which hadn't even been invented yet!

What! Lol. It's Galatians, Colossians, and Philipians. Philipinos? You're funny. Did the Holy Spirit come before Paul's Epistles? There were many false prophets, as there were today, and false teachings, so the Apostle's teachings had to be dispersed. Paul actually delivered a few of these guys to Satan, and for the church to not have associations with them.

Kristo:As to your closing question, I don't know which contradiction you have in mind, but I have suggested that Jefferson may have lied to conceal the essential Christianity of his Bible from his more liberal correspondents (the only ones to whom he admitted its existence in the first place)

Jon Rowe, among others, has claimed TJ denied miracles, was a rationalist, you know the story.

If he put Jesus healed on the sabbath in his bible, that's a contradiction, no? In that case, he would be in the same boat as Franklin, who denied miracles, but said turning water into wine is ok.

It's flat out hypocrisy, so why use their words anyway. The other framers didn't contradict themselves and make ridiculous statements violating common sense to satisfy their perverted beliefs.

Kristo Miettinen said...

Ben, Brad,

I guess that just as I have a looser sense of "Christian" than Jon and others, so I have a looser sense of "Protestant" than you guys.

The original protestants (16th century Europeans) were quite a diverse bunch, tied together by a few general principles, and stripping away the layers of accumulation on top of the simple faith of the apostles was one of the unifying principles of their movement. A common image in early protestant writing was wishing to restore the pure faith of the persecuted Roman Christians in the catacombs (the protestants, of course, felt themselves persecuted, both by Rome and later by conservative Anglican and Lutheran establishments).

Note that as I use the term, my own denomination (Lutheran) is arguably not protestant, ditto the Church of England. This is a classical question, long debated, and I mention it just to point out that the meaning of the term can be quite subtle. Few American protestants would question that Anglicans and Lutherans might not be protestant; after all, they're not Catholic, right? Ah, but they are catholic (and orthodox), just not Roman.

If I go back to Latourette (History of Christianity, chapter 37, "Protestantism: a Pause for Perspective"), the unifying themes of protestantism would seem to be simplified organizational and ritual systems, salvation by faith, the priesthood of all believers, the right and duty of each individual to judge for themselves on religious matters, scriptures must be interpreted by individual reason, pursuit of "primitive and true Christianity", focus on inviolability of conscience, individualism subjected to divine sovereignty, etc.

So, there is more to protestantism than just restoration, but restorationism and individualism and rationalism and conscience and bibliocentrism (the pillars of Jefferson's view) are all there.

Kristo Miettinen said...

Hi OFT!

That picture is a few years old (Afghanistan 2002). I'm a reserve LTC these days, commanding an information operations battalion.

I agree that the early fathers taught that Jesus was God, but they also knew that Jesus prayed to his father. The doctrine of the Trinity is not that Jesus is divine, it is the rationalization of the following scriptural propositions:

The father is divine.
The son is divine.
The spirit is divine.
The father, the son, and the spirit are separate.
God is one.

Until the Cappadocians, this was basically a puzzle. The doctrine of the Trinity is the solution. And the solution was not, to my knowledge, taught by Jesus, the apostles, or any of the first few generations of church fathers. They were much more accepting of mystery than we are today.

If the "contradiction" is about Jefferson denying miracles yet admitting them, my solution to that, offered above, is that Jefferson denied miracles as a rhetorical device, but allowed a miracle as an ancillary feature of a discussion on another topic. Jefferson is not hypocritical in this respect at all, just misunderstood.

I think that the classical secularist interpretation of Jefferson's objectives in editing scripture is wrong, and fails to acknowledge the essential Christianity of his result. This is why I did the reading that lead to this post.

Tom Van Dyke said...

And that is the aforementioned diamond, Kristo. Hehe.

Well done, exciting, thx for all the research, and I hope to hear more. I do think Mr. Hart's arguments are also worth keeping in mind as you proceed. He's done a bit of digging himself and I think it complements your own. We get a synergy around here sometimes.

Our Founding Truth said...

Kristo:That picture is a few years old (Afghanistan 2002). I'm a reserve LTC these days, commanding an information operations battalion.

Awesome! LTC must be Navy, right? Equivilant to Major in Army?

Until the Cappadocians, this was basically a puzzle. The doctrine of the Trinity is the solution. And the solution was not, to my knowledge, taught by Jesus, the apostles, or any of the first few generations of church fathers. They were much more accepting of mystery than we are today>

Maybe we should look at Polycarp, and Ignatius. Even Tertullian spoke of the Trinity. Maybe some people think the Trinity isn't explained sufficiently, but I don't think so. I can post at least ten verses speaking of God's triune nature. I think the early Christians were knowledgable and studious of the scriptures. They had to say, wait, Jesus is claiming to be God all over the place, so that is two God's, but we know there isn't two God's. And Acts is specific that the Holy Spirit is God. I know Calvary Chapel teaches Jesus is equal to the Father and Spirit, but because of Him taking on flesh, submitted to the Father. After all, Jesus, in His flesh, could not be at more than one place at the same time, or fly, because He was human.

Tom Van Dyke said...

"We" aren't talking any of that, Jim Goswick [OFT]. We aren't talking about the Bible. We're talking about Jefferson's view of the Bible.

Kristo Miettinen said...

LTC is lieutenant colonel, Army.

Either Latourette or Pelikan are good sources to trace what Ignatius, Papias, Polycarp etc, taught, and the development from them to the Cappadocians.

I cannot recommend either of them too highly! The history of Christian dogma is really important for those of us handicapped with incessant curiosity. My copies are full of underlining and margin commentary from multiple cover-to-cover readings.

I also recommend Adolf Harnack, with one reservation. On the plus side, Harnack is available online for free at CCEL. On the downside (from some people's perspective, not mine) Harnack is a protestant partisan, and it shows.

Our Founding Truth said...

Kristo:LTC is lieutenant colonel, Army.

Sorry about that Kristo. LT. COL. is awesome! Can you make full bird Colonel? Or maybe flag officer?

Kristo Miettinen said...

I can probably get selected for COL, but getting a position is very political, and most of them are in the big cities. Being a backwoods reservist usually means hanging up your hat at LTC, and a successful career culminates in battalion command, more or less where I'm at...

Of all the folks here, you'd probably be the one to like Harnack. Do you know CCEL (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)? It's an online source for bible commentaries, theology, etc, from across the centuries. More there to read than can be digested in a lifetime...

Gregg Frazer said...

I haven't had time to read all of these posts -- so forgive me if someone else has made this point.

It is appropriate (and necessary) especially on Good Friday to point out three problems with Kristo's claim that "Life and Morals" suggests that Jefferson was some kind of Christian or even leaves room for such a conclusion.

First, the presence/absence of miracles is not the key issue. Some of the theistic rationalists believed it was rational that a supremely powerful God Who cared for His creation would use miracles to aid man. Besides, belief in miracles per se is not fundamental to Christian faith.

Second, in "Life and Morals," Jefferson cut out the verses in which Jesus specifically and clearly claimed to be God -- and the Jews picked up stones to execute Him for His blasphemy (John 8:58; John 10:30). If Jefferson were honestly wrestling with the true identity of Jesus and wanting others to do the same -- wouldn't such evidence be important???

Third, any account of the Gospels which cuts out the resurrection guts the core of Christianity. It's not just "another" passage or story which can be left out. Paul put it about as plainly as it could be put: "But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and IF CHRIST HAS NOT BEEN RAISED, THEN OUR PREACHING IS IN VAIN, YOUR FAITH ALSO IS VAIN. ... IF CHRIST HAS NOT BEEN RAISED, YOUR FAITH IS WORTHLESS; YOU ARE STILL IN YOUR SINS. ... IF WE HAVE HOPED IN CHRIST IN THIS LIFE ONLY, WE ARE OF ALL MEN MOST TO BE PITIED." [I Corinthians 15:13-19]

Jefferson some kind of Christian and "Life and Morals" an honest, soul-searching attempt to find the real Jesus and to understand Christianity? I don't think so.

As a Christian, I understand that my faith stands or falls on the validity of Christ's literal, bodily resurrection. Although I exult in it always, I will celebrate that reality with a special focus this weekend.

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