The Jefferson Bible
by Thomas Jefferson · first published 2011
33% recommend56% neutral11% critical
Contains the chronicles of Jesus from the New Testament, selected and arranged from the original text by President Jefferson himself.
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…Non-fiction: - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Hume) - the surviving words and works of Epicurus, and Diogenes the Cynic - Freakonomics (Levitt, Dubner) - The Gay Science (Nietzsche) - The Jefferson Bible (Christ, Jefferson (ed.)) - The Devil's Dictionary (Bierce) - Brain Droppings (George Carlin) - anything by P. J. O'Rourke - anything by Dave Barry
on “Ask YC: favorite books” ↗Check out the Jefferson Bible. I'm a fan of Christ but consider him one of the great moral philosophers instead of the son of god. This reading of the surmon on the mount moves me even though I'm not religious: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-3nN9-C1yKU
on “Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?” ↗…have problems with your faith and here's what I like about the faith: the gospels minus the miracles, and the actual teachings of Jesus. (Unsurprisingly one of my favorite versions of the Bible is the Jefferson Bible. It's pamphlet sized. It might be so much better for the world if it replaced all the Gideon's Bibles. Also, I can recommend A Gospel for Liberals by Todd Eklof as another great view of the gospels.)…
on “The Sikh Practice of Langar, a Free Meal Where Everyone Is Equal” ↗As an atheist, I do find some use for the Jefferson Bible. (US Founding Father) Thomas Jefferson collected all the best parts of the Gospels, dropped the miracles, some of the stranger allegories, but kept all the sermons (the things Jesus was said to have directly…
on “How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity” ↗Given Thomas Jefferson's aversion to the supernatural (https://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Bible-Smithsonian-Morals-Na...), and our worship of The Founding Fathers, then yes, atheism should be protected. Also, there's 2 clauses to that part of the US 1st Amendment: establishment clause and freedom…
on “Does the First Amendment protect atheism?” ↗…Consider Thomas Jefferson, who wrote about the Creator endowing all men with alienable rights. Even though he was probably a deist, he expressly incorporated Christian morality into his worldview (e.g. the Jefferson Bible). Or consider German Americans, one of Lincoln’s core constituencies that pushed him toward emancipation. These were recent immigrants to the Midwest who had no historical beef with the south. Yet, per…
on “The data are clear: The boys are not all right” ↗…curriculum than just about any other figure. Also relevant and not mentioned in these articles is the simple fact that Jefferson's two books were both private projects which he didn't publish or intend to, his Jefferson Bible edit and the Farm Book detailing daily goings on at his farm. As these were not published in his era they are certainly not major Enlightenment era works. His biggest writing contribution is in the large…
on “Texas, where science and history have become ideological battlegrounds” ↗A bit dry but worth a read. You will know more about Christianity than a lot of Christians. It's definitely a good book if you are looking for common sense morality. I think the Jefferson Bible is a better book if you are looking for moral teachings (never read it, only heard about it)
on “Ask HN: What book do you recommend everyone should read?” ↗Jefferson created what is called the Jefferson Bible[0], it is the story of new testament without any magic or superstition. It primarily consists of the words of Jesus and his moral teachings over his worldly actions. I think it's best to read Jefferson…
on “What We Lose When We Lose Thomas Jefferson – By Samuel Goldman” ↗…resurrection, and various other miracles in the Bible. He actually even composed his own 'bible' by [literally] cutting and pasting sections of the bible (across multiple languages no less) into a new book - the 'Jefferson Bible.' [1] And he made no secret of his views. Discovering this increased my respect for him by orders of magnitude. If we all abided values only because those values made sense to us, then I think the world…
on “Don't Learn Value from Society” ↗…being worried he would not have enough "street cred" with whalers unless he added enough details to show that he knows what real whaling is all about. I have often been tempted to use a razor and go Jefferson Bible on that book, cutting out all the pointless detailed sections.
on “Utopia Clicker” ↗…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_historicity_of... ---- * = Interestingly this exact observation led Thomas Jefferson, who created his own sort of sect-of-1 Christianity, to compose his own Bible, the Jefferson Bible [2]. He took all the likely factual context and writings in the bible, and removed all the supernatural aspects of it - essentially turning it into a historical text with moral lessons. Quite a shame…
on “Tiny number of 'supersharers' spread the majority of fake news” ↗…them himself into English. He probably did cross-check the King James Edition for some of the English wording, or at least couldn't entirely escape its orbit/gravitational pull, but it is mostly true the Jefferson Bible was a fresh early-American translation.
on “How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity” ↗