Tonight I've been perusing The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Compiled by Thomas Jefferson in the first two decades of the 1800s, it is an extraction from the Bible of the ethical teachings of Jesus, minus the content he deemed supernatural or corrupt.

Here's a description in Jefferson's own words, from a letter to John Adams:

"In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. . . We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the [ambiguities] into which they have been led. . . There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."

It's a short work, which tells us just how much worthless cruft Jefferson felt is in the Bible as a whole.

Like many of the Founding Fathers, Jefferson was a Deist. Contrary to the clamoring of Christian revisionists currently pressing for theocracy in the United States, Deism is nowhere near their belief system. For a Deist, the only beliefs one should possess are those found through the exercise of pure reason. For Jefferson, it was entirely rational the universe should have a creator as First Cause, but beyond this, reason concludes said creator has no involvement in the lives of human beings. Why should God interfere in what is already the best of all possible worlds?

The Jefferson Bible was first published posthumously in 1903 for the United States Congress. Jefferson did not want it published in his lifetime for fear it would be misunderstood or used against him by his enemies, which sounds similar to our current political atmosphere. It became tradition for new members of Congress to receive a copy of the volume on their starting day. Given the current lack of reasoning abilities in our modern Congress regarding religion, perhaps this practice should be revived.

Jefferson's Jesus performs no miracles. His coming is not heralded by angels, his birth is not of a virgin, there is no resurrection. Most importantly, he is not divine in nature. Jefferson's Jesus, like you and like me, is a human being. His wisdom and benevolence make him someone to look to for guidance, as a role model for ourselves.

This is a Jesus I can believe in.