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Quote by: Dirty Name RickSP, do you have a complete understanding of the context of this quote? Of the background dialogue that might have been taking place between Short and Jefferson? Of where Thomas Jefferson was in his own faith journey?
If not, then your quote is utterly meaningless and without merit. |
Yes, I think I do have a reasonable understanding of Jefferson's views. Do you, I wonder? I am not sure, Jefferson, ever an man of the Enlightment, would refer to it as faith journey. Are you familiar with the "Jefferson Bible"? Are you even aware of it?
He wrote extensively on his views of religion, in both private letters and in public discourse. Jefferson quite literally took a pair of scissors to his Bible and cut out those portions which he didn't like. He specifically excluded all references to the Trinity and to the divinity of Jesus. What remained was what he considered a moral text shorn of its "artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests". His much slimmer version was trimmed of all the "Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurgos, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of …nonsense." He titled it "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth". It is often referred to as the "Jefferson Bible."
I have no doubt that many Christians would find his hacking away at the New Testiment to be rank heresy.