Thomas Jefferson's 1804 First Abridgement of Jesus' Words

Book excerpt: "Jefferson was a deist and his 'Jefferson Bible' left out all the miracles and included only the moral teachings of Jesus." So goes the line in much of academia today. With impeccable scholarship, Dr. Patton has carefully researched, reconstructed, and reproduced Jefferson's The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth. He convincingly demonstrates that Jefferson never intended his 'wee little book' to be a new version of the Bible; rather, it was to be a compendium of Bible verses that Jefferson especially recommended to Native Americans.Jefferson includes many significant verses in this compendium such as: Luke 3:23-38 which traces Jesus' ancestry back to Adam; Mark 14:61-62 where Jesus proclaimed that He is indeed the Son of God, the Messiah (Christ), and the great I AM of the Old Testament, Exodus 3:14; Matthew 11:4-5 where Jesus tells the disciples of John the Baptist that his Messiahship is evidenced by healing the blind, the lame, and raising the dead. Those who read Dr. Patton's book with an open mind will conclude that Thomas Jefferson was closer to orthodoxy than many have previously thought.- Colonal John EidsmoeSenior Counsel & Resident Scholar, Foundation for Moral Law - Montgomery, AlabamaAuthor of: Historical and Theological Foundations of Law (a three volume set) and Christianity and the Constitution (and many other books).Dr. Judd Patton, Dr. Mark Beliles and David Barton are to be commended for correcting the prevailing liberal view that Thomas Jefferson did not respect the Bible, and indeed cut it up and "mangled" Holy Writ?it is valuable to know?that he held the Scriptures in high regard and simply edited this [1804] version of the Gospels concentrating on Jesus' moral teachings, as a manual for missionary use to Native Americans.- Garrett Ward ShedonThe John Morton Beaty Professor of Politics, University of Virginia's College at Wise, Virginia Author of: The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, Religion and Political Culture in Jefferson's Virginia, Jefferson and Ataturk: Political Philosophies, and What Would Jefferson Say?