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.
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.
RSS Feed