11/20/20
Thomas Jefferson was the acknowledged primary author of our Constitution. He was also a Christian, though some doubled his faith. He personally, using “cut and paste” methods, created his own book of things that he felt were most directly attributed to Jesus. It is no surprise that the a major part of his book included Jesus’ parables. The chart below summarizes the parables which Jefferson included and keys them with other works such as Barclay’s “The Parables of Jesus.”. Thomas Jefferson did not refer to his work as a bible, he referred to it as The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. I have added three parables from the Wikipedia list which Jefferson did not choose to use and have updated to show Parable reference from the New Testament, Phillips Translation.
Jesus Parables – Guide to Christian Living
As the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson’s religious beliefs are of great interest. He professed to be a Christian, and in the Declaration of Independence he wrote the phrase The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God. Further insight into his thinking are furnished in the Electricity and the Laws of Nature, below.
Electricity and the Laws of Nature
In his editing of John 9 he stops at John 9.3, deleting the healing of the blind man. What he leaves, though, clearly indicates his view that many of the events in life are random, i.e. with uncertainties, His language is repeated in his authorship of much of the U. S. Constitution, i.e. the use of the phrase Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.
What us not in the Jefferson Bible – Huffington Post
Jefferson on Freedom of Religion – Huffington Post
Jesus often uses the admonition “repent” in situations such as the collapse of the tower at Siloam. The point was that some were killed and some were not. To those not killed, he says that they should repent or take advantage of their extended time on Earth to put into practice his teachings.
Jefferson is correctly faulted for not freeing his slaves, as did some others. The situation was, though, that at that time slaves were held on the books as machinery and Jefferson, not being a good money manager, would have simply gone to bankruptcy had he freed his slaves. With that, the many people, slaves included, under his umbrella would have faced an uncertain future (Boles, 2017).