WE CANNOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE YESHUA, THE JESUS OF HISTORY. BUT CRITICAL BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP CAN RECOVER HIS AUTHENTIC TEACHINGS. I AND OTHER SCHOLARS HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THAT FOR DECADES, AND WE HAVE FAR BETTER RESOURCES THAN SIMPLY CUTTING OUT ALL THE WORDS ATTRIBUTED TO JESUS IN THE GOSPELS, AS JEFFERSON DID TO MAKE HIS OWN PERSONAL JEFFERSON BIBLE. SEE MY COMMENTS ON THIS POST. However, despite his deep distaste for organized religion and nonsense, Jefferson never questioned whether Jesus himself was a real historical character or an inspiring role model. In fact, it was these two assumptions that led to his comment about dung in letters to James Madison and W. Short: But the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his own country, was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond from the dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man. — To W. Short, Oct. 31, 1819 In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills. –- To John Adams, 1804
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 00:28:18 +0000
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