Philosophy Jefferson, Thomas: The Jefferson Bible v1. 15 March 2010

What has come to be known as the “Jefferson Bible” consists of a document he titled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” and some additional letters and documents. Jefferson prepared it in large part as an answer to a lifetime of critics who questioned his faith and Christianity. The main body of the document was prepared by cutting and pasting the four gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John) eliminating contradictions, inconsistencies, and what Jefferson considered implausible magic. Notably miracles are notably omitted and the narrative ends with the burial of Jesus; that is no physical resurrection.

Jefferson was very much a man of his times, the Age of Enlightenment. It is hard to imagine a successful politician of this day, at least in the U.S., having the courage to run the Bible through a word processing program (the modern cut and paste) to state the edited result is what he actually believes.

I've tossed in the link here because it is at least tangentially related to this whole topic, as well as being just funny.


TroubleTown


The original material was obtained from Google Books, open source. I corrected a number of errors comparing to source document, I believe improved the formatting a bit, and added a new cover page. Sadly no headers.

About the new version 04-03-2010:

Whew, just in time for Easter.

So version 2 is in my opinion a great improvement over version 1. I am really getting better at preparing EPUB books, both through experience and through so many great tips read here. This thread in particular https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46448 has been a goldmine. Thanks go out to all there who have asked questions and to those who have provided answers; zelda-pinwheel, Jelby, and pdurrant warrant citation by screen name.

I also spent the time to try and achieve complete validation by the Azardi program. Much frustration there as at times it would seem that perfectly valid XHTML is not, according to Azardi, valid XHTML for EPUB. Managed to struggle through it though with only the cover page resisting all effort. I am convinced that Azardi just will not validate the SVG wrapper around an image.

So what is different in version 2 is a very few spelling corrections and corrections to match the original document, and a much better look and organization.

So have a happy atheist or agnostic Easter.

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[Gatton]

Thank you SO much for this! I have the PDF copy from Google Books on my Nook Color but I am pleased to be able to have this one on my Kindle. I am also inspired by the work you put into this. I may have to try and learn to build my own epubs someday. Thanks again.

[Skibble]

I'd also like to thank you for all your hard work on this. It looks great.

[Ed_Grey]

I recently discovered that you can make an epub by using Calibre (free open source ebook reader for Linux, Windows, and Mac) to convert RTF files. RTF files are easy to make in almost any word processor. ODT works as well, but you can't create an ODT file in Word.

[WT Sharpe]

Thanks, Hamlet53. As you may know, I have a hardback copy signed by Jefferson himself, Mr. Clay Jenkinson.

Are you planning a mobi conversion, and if not, mind if I take a stab at it?