Deism is a religious perspective that was spawned by the Enlightenment (159).   Through Deism, people have a new choice of religion rather than following certain parts of Christianity. Deists believe that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator without necessarily having an organized religion.  The article explained the differences between Old learning and New learning.  Old learning focused on the Bible as being the absolute truth and only certain people had the ability to read and understand it.  These people would include preachers.  New learning, however, focused mainly on reason and logic.  Newton, Bacon, and Locke were important leaders. 
    Through these principles, Thomas Jefferson took a different approach to the Gospels.  To understand Jesus’ life, he decided to eliminate all of the parts of the Bible that went against what Deists believe.  The miracles, the virgin birth, and the resurrection are not found in the Jefferson Bible since they are unable to be proven true scientifically.  With doing so, Jefferson wanted to get rid of all of the corruptions in the Bible, so he completely eliminated the entire Old Testament since it reflected things that Deists don’t believe in.  Jefferson then only kept teachings that directly had to do with Jesus.

According to Lambert, the Deists were thinkers that were brought out of the Enlightenment who believed that reason should be considered over revelation (159, 172).  They denoted the idea that the bible was the absolute truth and that only certain people had access to the Bible in way that they could report on it and interpret its meaning (161-162).  The Deists were thinkers that believed in the “New Learning”, which focused on logic and reason and a rejection of traditional religious values.  The “New Learning” was the opposition to the “Old Learning” (162).  The Old Learning thinking considered the Bible to be the absolute truth and that it is possible to find answers to all of life’s problems by turning to the Bible (164). The “New Learning” students included Locke, Bacon, and Newton, who all believed in developing the laws of nature and looking for answers using empirical data and inductive reasoning (166).  From the Enlightenment, there was a bigger emphasis on scientific reasoning to explain certain things that are hard to explain in the Bible (168).  Jefferson, having similar ways of think with the deists, would then consider the Gospels in a more logical and calculating manner.  In the Jefferson Bible, he excludes the miracle stories, the birth narrative, and the resurrection story.  I think part of the reason that Jefferson took those parts out was because he wanted to emphasis Christianity based on morals and obligations towards others.  Jefferson compiles the Gospels together to create one story that details Jesus’s journey and the morals that he was teaching.  The Jesus that is portrayed in the Jefferson Bible doesn’t really have any traits that set him apart from other people.  He is portrayed as a seemingly normal man who preached the word of God and taught people the right and wrong ways to live their lives.  

Deism is considered an alternative outlook and twist on Christianity. Deists still believe in God and believe in some of the teachings of the Bible, however they have made many changes and interpret these teachings in a much different way than Christians. Deists believe that God is our creator but they believe that is the extent of his role in our everyday lives. They think God has almost no influence on our lives and does not make any interventions. They also have a hard time believing in any of the miracles that Jesus was said to perform during his time on earth. Although deists live by the morals and sayings of Jesus, they see him as a great philosopher and nothing more than that. Thomas Jefferson was a huge advocate of Deism and created a Bible, which included only the information and says that Deists thought to be true. His Bible was based on Jesus’s sayings and teachings rather than his divinity. Jefferson didn’t even consider including the Old Testament, he didn’t think any of it was relevant and cut out many passages in the New Testament as well. His Bible doesn’t include anything that makes Jesus look like anything more than a human. For example he didn’t include the resurrection because this makes Jesus look like divine and therefore is unrealistic to deists. Jefferson also didn’t include the miracles Jesus preformed because that would seem unrealistic. Jefferson only included stories that seemed like they could be realistic. 

    Lambert’s article offers many religious principles that Deism advanced. Contrary to author religions Deists believe that God does not intervene with how the natural works, but instead is said to have created the world and then stand by to allow it to run itself. God did give the people guidelines called the laws of nature. Deists acknowledged that God created the world, but only used natural processes that still occur today. Lambert adds that Deism believes “God uses all nature for his own purposes” (167). Deism  also declares that there is no need for organized religion, and that humans can only know God through reason and observation. 
                 
     The principles of Deism made a strong impact on the way Jefferson viewed religion and the gospels. Lambert supports this by saying, “Thomas Jefferson became a Deist and began to separate between what he considered moral teachings of Jesus versus Christians’ corruptions of those teachings” (174). This is when Jefferson began forming his own Bible that discarded the Old Testament and stripped the New Testament of miracles and superstitious events. Jefferson also believed that “morality was more important than doctrine” (177). He thought that to be moral is what separated a civilized society from an unsophisticated, uncultured society. Due to Jefferson’s Deist beliefs he did not support most of the “important” stories of the gospels, those addressing the birth, baptism, and death/resurrection. For example, Jefferson does not include the virgin birth nor does he include anything about the resurrection.

The ideas expressed in natural theology focus mainly on empiricism, or being able to prove concepts with rational observations.  This is easily seen in Jefferson’s work on the Bible.  He eliminated all the miracles or direct interventions from God.  This includes dreams, talking through prayer and angels and even when God speaks to Jesus after the baptism.  The frameworks for those stories are left in though, as well as some portions that can be considered normal.  The most curious of those is the meeting of the blind and the sick.  This gives moral stories but Jefferson stops before the miracle of healing happen.  The same happens with the feeding of the people.  Jefferson leaves in most, if not all, the parables, including duplicate copies from the different gospel accounts.  I believe this is because of the possible importance he sees in repeating the moral stories they have.  In the end, Jefferson creates a strange combination of sayings of Jesus, like Gospel of Thomas or Quelle, and historic events that have no miraculous connections.  All of the actions left in are easily explained with reason with a few that have comments on the coming of the Kingdom.  The moral guidelines suggest that Jefferson sees the Kingdom as an earthly one that is in place now, but I feel that the fact that he left in the bulk of Matthew 22 Jefferson feels that an end time does exist.

The religious principles the Deists advanced were reason over revelation as the best guide for human progress and nature over scripture as the clearest window unto God (159). This gave people a religious choice to those who no longer wanted to follow the corruptions and superstitions of Christianity. Old learning was focused on the Bible as the absolute truth and only some people had the god-given gift of interpreting what the Bible says. People that would have been able to do this would be preachers. On the other hand, new learning focused on reason and logic and principles were discovered through empirical research. Some of the key leaders of this were Locke, Bacon, and Newton. With this they believed that human beings had the means and power to shape their own futures (171).

These principles shaped Jefferson’s approach to the gospels, in particular Jesus’ birth, baptism, and death/resurrection by ridding of all of the miracles and other things that didn’t go along with how the Deists believed. In Jefferson’s Bible you won’t find anything about a virgin birth or the resurrection. Jefferson deleted these things from his book because they were the types of things that wouldn’t have been able to have been proved through science. Jefferson converted to Deism because he questioned many of Christianity’s central beliefs. He also differentiated between what he considered to be the moral teachings of Jesus and Christians’ corruptions of those teachings (174). With that being said, because he wanted to rid the Bible of all corruptions he completely got rid of the entire Old Testament. Jefferson felt that it reflected supernaturalism and mocked the laws of nature (174). With Jefferson’s Bible he only left the moral teachings attributed to Jesus.

        Deism offers an “alternative to revealed religion” (161), it insists that “people should be free to seek religious truth guided only by reason and the dictates of the consciences” (161-162). Old Learning had been focused around the Bible as absolute truth, but New Learning, which inspired Deism, taught to doubt and scrutinize all authority (165). Deism grew during this period due to its reflection of Enlightenment principles that focus on logic and reason. Deism rejects most of Christianity’s treasured beliefs that do not conform to reason and natural law (167, 174). Deists chose to view God as a “Natural God” who created the universe, but remains impersonal (172). They do not believe that God “saves” people (173) and that “man is responsible for and capable of finding his true happiness” (172).
        As a Deist, Thomas Jefferson believed much of the Bible to be corruptions of Christianity. Jefferson proceeded to “edit” the Bible to rid it of all it’s corruptions. His first act was to take out the entire Old Testament because it “mocked the laws of nature, and…the god it revealed was an angry, spiteful, vengeful deity” (174). Since Jefferson denied the divinity of Jesus “ascribing to [him] every human excellence” based on the idea that Jesus never insisted any different (174), Jefferson’s second act was to “[strip] the New Testament of all accounts of miracles and supernatural tales” (174). Jefferson cut up the four Gospels and included in his Bible only the passages in these that reflect the moral teachings attributed to Jesus (174). The birth story mentions nothing of a virgin or miraculous birth. The baptism story is also quite brief, barely mentioning that Jesus met John to be baptized and leaving it at that. Finally, the death story is more complete, however there is nothing mentioned about a resurrection; it ends with Jesus in the tomb. As a Deist, Jefferson completely disregards anything that goes against logic and reason and appears supernatural. 

    I would never have read this book on my own, and I wasn't too excited to read it for class.  However, after reading it I am very thankful for being made to read it.  It approached topics I've never even considered interesting before but now find fascinating.  The most interesting topic in this book for me has to be the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.  It makes me want to know how exactly Jesus's status as Messiah came about and if he originally was a disciple of John.  I think the fact that the supposed Son of Jesus would ever have to study under someone else before venturing out on his own is absolutely fascinating.  Also, in a strange way, reading the chapter about the relationship between the two made me want to be friends with them.  I think the conversations between them would probably be some of the most thought-provoking exchanges I could ever imagine.  Plus, I am really wondering what their personalities were like and how different they were.

    Besides bringing up some topics that make me think, the biggest thing this book did for me was make me question my outlook.  Unlike most people in the class, I have never been a religious person.  Frankly, I think the Bible is just a book.  I don't think of it as something to be taken as fact or truth or even something that could make me believe in any kind of God.  However, learning that some of the happenings in the Bible were true makes me wonder if I have been too close-minded.  It makes me consider opening my mind to becoming a faithful person, and that for me is a big step.  It's o

This book was quite an interesting read for me and really made me think about Jesus in a different way.  The information in the book put up a lot of challenge for those who are quite religious and especially for those who have not really thought about the historical Jesus.  I myself had never thought into the history of Jesus, at least not in the depth that Norm looks at it.  Everyone sees Jesus in a different light and with that, everyone approached this book with a different opinion and initial thoughts.  I think that C.S. Lewis did an incredible job laying out the facts and leaving it open for interpretation for the reader.  I enjoyed also seeing Norm’s spiritual and intellectual maturation throughout his journey.  I enjoyed seeing the different reactions Norm had to the different situations he was put in.  His faith was something that he almost had to put aside while he was on his journey.  The book was very matter of fact, told the story how it is currently known and pointed out the flaws and gaps in some of the scriptures.  It also justified and backed up other scriptures from the bible.  This book definitely challenged some things that people do believe to just be true.  Things like the miracle stories and the resurrection.  Honestly these stories seem just that to me, stories.  I liked that the book pointed out the three views of scholars in terms of the history of the gospels.  Overall I was very glad to have read this book, it opened my eyes and also shed some new light on my spiritual views.