The Guardian reports on a fascinating story from across the Atlantic, where an imprint of Penguin USA has reprinted Thomas Jefferson’s Bible.
The book is a based on a copy of the Gospels kept by the third President of the United States between 1803 and 1820, from which he expunged those passages which he could not accept. It would appear, at first glance, that Jefferson placed moral philosophy above the miraculous. He called the book ‘The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth’, and redacted the supernatural elements of Christ’s life from his volume. Gone are the virgin birth, the resurrection and the ascension. This choice might suggest that Jefferson’s rationalism could not accommodate the Holy Spirit; but, equally, the suppression of the divine serves to emphasise Christ’s very humanity — the Word made flesh, as it were, which is of vital theological importance to Christianity.
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