July 1, 2010 • 23 mins
Thomas Jefferson is famous for his role in shaping the United States of America -- and for creating his own, revised version of the Bible. Learn more about the Jefferson Bible in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always as
Charles W. Chuckers Bryant, and that makes this stuff you
(00:23):
should know. I'm always here for you. Josh. Yeah, Hey,
don't whatever. I'm glad you are. Chuck. Sure. This is
UM Day two, Episode two in the new Studio. Yes,
the walls are closing in on us. I'm kind of
looking in here now. I'm already used to it, Chuck, Josh. Um,
(00:44):
So the Bible has been popping up in my life
a lot lately. Really, Yeah, um, you mean? And I
just started subscribing to Harper's Monthly Weekly, one of those two.
It's like this magazine from like eight nine, okay. Um.
And in the first article of the first issue that
(01:04):
we got, it's um there's a there's I guess notes
section by a guy who says that the Old Testament
is an allegory for the Neolithic revolution. Remember we went
from hunting and gathering to agriculture. And he made some
really cool points, Um, like for example, Kane and Abel.
(01:27):
Abel was a herdsman, Kane was a farmer. Kane murdered Abel, right,
so he slew him, uh first murder. Ever, as far
as we know, yes, um, I can't remember what he
said about Adam and Eve. But basically like that's the
beginning where we It was actually kind of a cautionary tale. Yeah,
(01:48):
like like be careful, there's all this other stuff associated
with agriculture that you're not seeing. Um So, I found
that intensely interesting. Then you suggest we do one on
the Jefferson Bible, and I'm like, what's going on here?
Right right? Third one, number three? This elderly woman by
all right, she's in her eighties, nineties, spitfire ladies still though, sure,
(02:13):
I didn't like to use a blinker When she stopped
suddenly in parking lots when I'm right behind her, the
um so I went around her. I was a little irritated,
and I wanted her to know it. She lays on
her horn and I let's stick my head out, and
I'm like, be quiet, and like you did not, I
go in park and I go into the into the um,
(02:34):
into public spe quiet. This woman comes and finds me
and it's like, are you the sir, You the gentleman
who went around me and traffic blah blah blah, and
she's like berating me loudly in the middle of public.
He said, I'm no gentleman. So finally she ends it
with you need to get to church. And I was like,
(02:58):
I swear to God, I'm not kidding you. My friend
tom My bff Tom was on the phone with me.
He can verify this, and he said, Betty White is
coming after me in a public I wish this was
Betty White. This woman was terrifying. She was wearing like
clam diggers with um white sox, pulled up black s
a S shoes um. Her skin hung loose, and she
(03:22):
had fire in her She wanted to kill me. What
did you say? Did you reply anything? Or did you
just sheepish sleep? Rather, I wasn't sheepish. You're not gonna
say what you said? You can tell me afterwards there, right, okay?
But I was. I wasn't cheapish. I wasn't like entirely mean,
but I didn't I didn't frankly, as you know, I
quit the boy Scouts because I think that it's a
(03:42):
bad idea to just give blanket respect to the old
people because they're old. I've met some old jerks in
my time, and this was actually one of them. So yeah,
but this this week, man three, it's an exciting week.
I never talked about the Bible. It never comes up,
Church never comes up. But here we are, all right, Chuck.
(04:05):
Did Thomas Jefferson right or rewrite the Bible? Fact or fiction? Hey,
that's old school, Josh. That is faction because he um,
he did not rewrite the Bible, but he did cobble
together his own version of the Bible that he thought
(04:25):
was um valid and and should be read. I'll just
say that, which is actually, if you think about it,
really a pretty pretentious and arrogant thing to do. This
wouldn't go over well in today's president If someone said Obama, UM,
(04:45):
put together, you know, different parts of the Bible and
said that this was what I think the Bible should be,
he wouldn't last too long. No, I don't think it
would have ever gone over If Taft had done it,
he would have been like run out of town on
a rail, Like, you can't do that. It's early day,
so you away with anything. Back then, I suspect that
Thomas Jefferson had um Asperger's from some of his uh,
(05:07):
some of his um. His demeanor, the way carrying himself
is incredibly high level of intellect. Um. I suspect that
he had some something along those lines. Right, he might have.
You can also say that he could not have cared
less what people thought of him. He did his own thing.
Highly intelligent guy. Um. And like you said, if it
(05:30):
had come out that the president had done that, a
lot of people are unaware of this, that it wouldn't
go over very well, which is why he didn't let
it out. I don't know that that's why he didn't
let it out. I think he just was doing it
for himself, genuinely. I don't think he was trying to
be secretive about it. But you were saying, like it
wouldn't go over well. Today, there's kind of it's kind
of um fashionable in certain quarters to point out that
(05:54):
the founding fathers were bent on founding a Christian nation.
It's a very contentious thing to say, although a lot
of people that's how they see the United States, right.
I think Thomas Jefferson cutting up the Bible and cutting
out all the miracles and what he considered gobbledygook kind
of undermines that argument a little bit. Don't you think, well,
he was a deist. It's a good time to bring
(06:16):
that up. George Washington was a deist. Benjamin Franklin and
what we call founders, they are they differ from traditional
Christians because they reject miracles, basically a lot of the prophecies,
and they says here they embraced the notion of a
well ordered universe created by God, but God then withdrew
(06:37):
into detached transcendence. They believe like a lot of things
Christians believe, but a lot a lot of people at
the time said this was a way for you to
reconcile your Christianity with all these amazing new scientific findings
that we're finding that kind of fly in the face
of Christianity. Right in Deism was the Enlightenment religion, right um.
(06:58):
And basically the way it looked at God is there's
a creator God, but he's kind of like a clockmaker,
and he created this clock of a universe wounded up
and just stood back to to watch it go. It's
a great way to say. And do you remember, like
in the really uber paranoid late nineties, right before the millennium.
There's like kind of a concept that the universe is
(07:19):
a u the result of an alien experiment. That's kind
of like in the same vein. Actually there's some higher
power that doesn't have a hand in our individual lives,
but start created all this. Yeah, pretty interesting, it is.
So that was That was T J m BF and
g W T Jeff. That's what his nickname today would
(07:42):
be T Jeff. His nickname today is T Jeff as
of now. So um. He also was the he pinned
the Declaration of Independence, we should say, which most people know.
He was also the one who co first elucidated the
wall of separation between church and state. Yeah, not did
not come from the Constitution. No, but he So there's
(08:04):
this Baptist Convention of dan Berry, Yes, the Connecticut Committee
of the dan Berry Baptist Association, and they wrote to
Jefferson saying, is this a Christian nation or not? Basically
he basically pointed to know he said, he said, he said, no,
I I I'm sure you agree with me that religion
(08:25):
is between a man and his God and really eloquently
said no, there's a First Amendment. There's a there's a
clause in the First Amendment that says that that UM
Congress won't um establish a religion, and so I Thomas
Jefferson as president and one of the guys who wrote that,
see it as a wall of separation between church and state.
(08:47):
He thought it was a very very personal thing. Religion
was spirituality was a very personal thing. No one should
step in and tell you what to think about it, right,
It's so personal that he decided to craft his own Bible. Yes.
And one of the reasons he did us because Um,
like we said, he was a deist deist or deist daist.
I think you can go either way. Now he's a Deist.
And he was also very skeptical of who wrote the Bible,
(09:10):
the Gospels in particular. He thought they were quote unlettered
and ignorant. Yeah, basically how he saw the Bible writers. Um,
that's where the name comes from. Yeah, those were the
Gospel writers. But they were also um Platonics. They followed
Plato and wrote around the time of Plato. Um. And
(09:30):
they remember when we were talking about like Halloween, Christmas, Easterday. Yeah,
they're all pagan holidays that we've adopted and christianized in
in an effort Um eastern together. Yeah, it wasn't. Yes,
spring harvest, spring um equinox, vernal equinox. I think it's
what it's called right, vernal and autumnal. Yes, vernal equinox,
(09:53):
and s Tera was a pagan goddess. Anyway, Um, this
is this, This is how he viewed the the Bible
being written like like there was a there was a
person named Jesus of Nazareth. He walked awesome guy, philosopher,
incredible philosopher, had this amazing moral code what right? Um?
(10:16):
And then uh and espoused it to people who remembered it,
passed it down orally, and then somebody finally wrote it down.
But when they were trying to write it down, they
were also trying to establish a church. And Um, so
they added some magic so that they could they could
bring the pagans into the fold a miracles. Yes. And
he also believed and this is where he really wouldn't
(10:39):
jibe with today's UH system as a politician. He did
not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. He did
not believe that he was the son of God. He
thought that he was like Plato, essentially like a spot
on philosopher. But he thought a lot of them, he said. Um.
He wrote a letter to John Adams in eighteen thirteen
and said that the book that he ended up putting together,
(11:02):
which we'll get into the nuts and bolts of that,
but he said he called it the most sublime and
benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered demand. Yeah,
Jesus's philosophy. Yeah, so he clearly thought a lot of
of Jesus's philosophy, and he thought a lot of the
Greek um philosophers and I imagine other religious philosophers as well.
But what he was saying was that what Jesus had
(11:23):
come up with was as good as it gets. He
kind of bashed Plato though, did you see that? Yeah?
He read Plato in the original Greek and was like
many exactly he found it lackluster. Yeah. Yeah, well, I
guess he's hard to please. He read the Bible and
he cut it down to forty six pages. He did.
Christopher Hitchins put it like this, You know, Hits, he's
not he's not a big guy on religion. No, he
(11:46):
kind of actively combats it. But yeah, um on, there's
a forty six second clip on YouTube of Christopher Higgins
debating somebody, and he describes the Jefferson Bible as what
was left after Jefferson took a pair of scissors and
cut out anything that could not buy any intelligent person
be believed. It makes for a slender, convenient ready. And yeah,
(12:06):
I mean, if you take Christopher Hitchins, this is no
surprise to you. If you love Christopher Hitchins, this is
no surprise. Yes, But he got one thing wrong. He
apparently is a razor and not scissors. Small detail. He
literally he went through and was was scratching stuff out,
and then I think he went back and started cutting
stuff out. Well, he probably that he found himself scratching
so much out he got tiresome, and he's like, I
(12:28):
should just see cut out what I do like instead
of scratching out what I don't like. Because all told,
there are thirty one thousand, a hundred three Bible verses
numbered Bible verses, right, but he was just doing the
New Testament, so we're talking seven thousand and seven, right,
and specifically the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which there
(12:49):
well there was more than that, but he he used
a lot for Matthew and Luke two thousand, two hundred
twenty two and Matthew and Luke and all told, he
only had the Jefferson Bible only had nine versus. So
he definitely paired down quite a bit big time. He Um,
he took out everything about he and he took he
took out everything about um Christ's birth, the virgin birth
(13:11):
that was gone. He left in the crucifixion, but it
ends at the burial. There's no resurrection. Yeah. Basically the
last verse was um John nineteen and they ended it.
His book ends with they rolled the stone in front
of the sepulcher and the the end. Uh. He he
left a lot of the Last Supper ing but kept
(13:31):
the part of the Eucharist out. This is my body,
my blood. Yeah. Um. So basically he just kept in
basically the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth and
his philosophy. Yeah. They in the article that he left
what they called what he considered genuine events like the
Sermon on the Mount, certain parables, the way to live
(13:54):
your life. And see, that's always been my deal. I
don't want to get too personal, but you know I
was right after the last two hundred episodes that. Yeah,
I was raised Southern Baptist and it wasn't the best
experience for me. But I still say, I still maintain
that the Bible has is a great moral code, and
there's lots of great parables that teach you how you
(14:14):
should act as a human. And apparently I'm in Jefferson's camp,
because that's what he ended up using as Uh. He
ended up calling it initially the Philosophy of Jesus of
Nazareth and then change that title later to the Life
and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, right, and then uh
in the edition there was a subtitle or how to
(14:36):
get Buying Queens on a dime of day. I'll long
have you been working on that one? Just now? Yeah?
Shut up? So, Um, it clearly wasn't called how to
Win Friends and Influence People, because he he this probably
wasn't a very popular thing to do even back then.
I'm sure it would have the same effect as how
to Win friends and Influence people? Though. Yeah, but he
(14:58):
did keep it quiet it Um, he said it was
for himself. Again, I don't think he kept it quiet.
I think he he was just keeping it for himself.
I disagree with part A of the sentence you just said,
but agree with part B. Thank you. Yea. I have
a quote from him if you want to hear from
the man himself. Uh, Josh is wrong. No, sorry, he said,
(15:19):
I performed the operation for my own use by cutting
verse by verse out of the printed book and arranging
the matter, which is evidently his, and which is as
easily distinguished as diamonds and a dunghill. That's kind of harsh,
but he's saying that the stuff that really came from
Jesus mouth is the gold, the diamonds in the dunghill.
(15:39):
So he extracted all that and that was what he
believed in. Well, yeah, he thought the Platonics were sellouts
that they should have just you know, maybe not added
quite so much. So what happened to it, Josh? What
happened to it? Was it? Basically again, he did it
for himself. Um. I think I read a reference that
he did it kind of on a whim or in um. Uh.
(16:04):
In response to a question from a friend to his
Dr Benjamin Rush, he said, like, how would you characterize
your view of Christianity? So he went about doing that.
I think it's the idea exactly got a razor um
and it was in his private library, which apparently somebody inherited,
and a Smithsonian librarian came across it. What I Cerrus Adler.
(16:25):
What I found funny was Cyrus Adler is a government employee,
came across this and was like, I'm going to sell
list to the Library of Congress. You know though. Yeah,
they did, and they started putting it in print. Congress
ordered it in print. Um. Thomas Jefferson is considered the
father of the Senate. Uh. He was the first vice president. Um.
(16:46):
So he and he wrote the rules of the Senate
that are still in use today. Uh. He just did
it because it was bored. One day, asked Berger's same
regin he cut up the Bible yeah, um, and so
Congress Um. Congress started publishing. I think it published like
nine thousand copies and even still today it's um a
customary welcome gift to new members of Congress. I find
(17:09):
that interesting, like the same Congress who are like, this
is a Christian nation. Yeah, but I mean it's still
in there. That's that's the diamond. But it is very
interesting that they would give an altered version of the
Bible as a gift. Yeah, I mean it's it's not
as odd as if they were to give like Alistair
Crowley's memoirs, but it was definitely a little odd. When
(17:32):
I read that, I was slightly shocked. Yeah, well it
kind of comes it kind of reveals a certain disingenuousness.
Done that, Yeah, a little bit possibly makes you think
at least well, and then lets you know what was
in Thomas Jefferson's mind, and he's easily one of the
most fascinating historical figures we have. You got anything else? No,
(17:54):
if you want to know more about the Jefferson Bible,
you can read this pretty cool article by McGrath. You
can find it online the whole Bible. You can do both.
How about let's get some people this site first, that's true. Uh.
You just type in Jefferson Bible and the handy search
bart how stuff works dot com. Uh, and then after
that you might as well just go read the Jefferson Bible, right, yes, yes,
(18:19):
which leads us to listener questions. So yeah, we we
put out a call on Facebook a couple of weeks
ago for questions and we got bombarded. So we're actually
having to do this in installments, because there are a
lot of good questions. These are the really we need
new questions, man, No, no, no, no, old no. These
are brand new. You're lying every two weeks ago. But
(18:42):
there's still new because we haven't used them. So we're
gonna bust a lot of these pretty quickly. Chuck says,
who's taller between Josh Chuckers and Jerry. Josh is the tallest,
at a robust six ft or so. I'm about on
the nun about five tin, Jerry, how tall are you
behind the curtain? Go ahead, I've got one from Colin.
(19:06):
Who would win in a fist fight? Ire a Glass
or Josh? I think it would be a um we
can actually size we sized him up physically in person now.
I think it would be like a um, humiliating slap
fight for both guys. I don't know that there would
be a fight. Would be more like, um, do you
remember Adam Goldberg in Daisy Confused? Yes? Do you remember
(19:28):
when he's being pulled off or when when um Nikki
Kat's being pulled off at him? Yeah? I think it
would be like that, but both of us, both of
us is Adam Goldberg? Yeah? Uh? Tripp says can you
finally reveal the name of the big box appliance store
that UM did not do? Chuck right with his extended warty.
I don't think that that would be very smart. Do
(19:49):
you know that? Even I don't know what it is.
I don't think that would be very brand smart to do, Josh.
So I'm not going to thank you trip for the question, Chuck.
I'm not reading this one. So here's another one from Natalie.
Would you consider doing a six degrees of separation from
your listeners? I go first. My sister Kathleen went to
(20:10):
ride Dan High School with Chuck. Kathleen egan awesome, So
that's not a question. Even ends in an exclamation point.
Tom says, what's it like being so old? Chuck? Tom?
It is awesome? Go ahead. Okay, there's one from Hannah.
Which is better cake or pie? What do you call
a soft drink? I call it soda. My pubby calls
(20:33):
it pop. That's two questions. I call it coke. I
call it coke as well. I grew up calling it pop. Yeah.
What's better? Cake and pie? Actually, there's nothing better than
a good cake pie. Yeah? I like cake cake pie. Brittany, Oh,
this is Brittany from New York and actually, to answer
that question, pies better remember Brittany britt britt Yes, Brittany says,
(20:54):
does hippie Rob participate in the s y FK drinking
game which we don't sanction? No one knows we're a
hippie robbis and if so, is he the all time
record holder? Uh? I don't even know that hippie Rob
knows that s y s K exists, and of course
she doesn't. I don't think he does. Uh So, this
one's from Bobby. What are your favorite bands of all
times or your favorite songs? My favorite band of all time?
(21:15):
Clear winner is the Pixies. Chuck really oh yeah, probably
go with like the Who or Pavement. Maybe Zeppee Brianna
are favorite fan. Brianna says, what were your first impressions
of each other? I thought Josh was like me when
I first met a Mint. It turns out he sort
of is, and he's sort of not. It's not true
(21:36):
at all. Now I knew we were like fellow Um.
I thought you were a cool guy, reformed bad boys.
You know, you had that pack of cigarettes rolled up
in your sleeve. That was the dig giveaway I've got
one from Ebba. How does Jerry work? She doesn't? Oh,
not true? Um, Christopher, what's it like living in Hotlanta?
(21:58):
Particularly now that the summer starting? It is awful? And
I grew up here and it's still awful. And it's
not like you get used. It's gotten exponentially worse even
since I moved down here. You can't break, It's like
you're swimming outside. Yeah, I got one more. This one
is from Mark. If you could have one superpower, what
would it be? Flying invisibility? Well, those are the questions.
(22:23):
I'm not done yet. I got two more quick ones.
Josh Shan says, would you like cheese with that? Always
of course as the answer to that question. And Joe says,
what is the best most unique piece of free swag
anyone has sent you? And I think we just got
it this week. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with
the Root suit, are you? Yeah? The Root Suit, for
(22:45):
those of you that are always sunny in Philadelphia fans,
is the green Man costume that Charlie wears. And so
I requested a green Man outfit and you won't take
it off? And I got it, and I wrote the
guy today and said thank you so much for the
green Man thing. I'm really excited, and said your life,
your new life begins now, your new life of leaving
absolutely nothing to the imagination. Chuck, it's disturbing. Nobody wants
(23:09):
to see this, So if you have a question for us,
go join our Facebook fan page jerk It's uh Facebook
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It's very you know, late nineties, but still it's cute.
(23:29):
You can send it to Stuff podcast at how stuff
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Stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by
(23:50):
the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always as
Charles W. Chuckers Bryant, and that makes this stuff you
(00:23):
should know. I'm always here for you. Josh. Yeah, Hey,
don't whatever. I'm glad you are. Chuck. Sure. This is
UM Day two, Episode two in the new Studio. Yes,
the walls are closing in on us. I'm kind of
looking in here now. I'm already used to it, Chuck, Josh. Um,
(00:44):
So the Bible has been popping up in my life
a lot lately. Really, Yeah, um, you mean? And I
just started subscribing to Harper's Monthly Weekly, one of those two.
It's like this magazine from like eight nine, okay. Um.
And in the first article of the first issue that
(01:04):
we got, it's um there's a there's I guess notes
section by a guy who says that the Old Testament
is an allegory for the Neolithic revolution. Remember we went
from hunting and gathering to agriculture. And he made some
really cool points, Um, like for example, Kane and Abel.
(01:27):
Abel was a herdsman, Kane was a farmer. Kane murdered Abel, right,
so he slew him, uh first murder. Ever, as far
as we know, yes, um, I can't remember what he
said about Adam and Eve. But basically like that's the
beginning where we It was actually kind of a cautionary tale. Yeah,
(01:48):
like like be careful, there's all this other stuff associated
with agriculture that you're not seeing. Um So, I found
that intensely interesting. Then you suggest we do one on
the Jefferson Bible, and I'm like, what's going on here?
Right right? Third one, number three? This elderly woman by
all right, she's in her eighties, nineties, spitfire ladies still though, sure,
(02:13):
I didn't like to use a blinker When she stopped
suddenly in parking lots when I'm right behind her, the
um so I went around her. I was a little irritated,
and I wanted her to know it. She lays on
her horn and I let's stick my head out, and
I'm like, be quiet, and like you did not, I
go in park and I go into the into the um,
(02:34):
into public spe quiet. This woman comes and finds me
and it's like, are you the sir, You the gentleman
who went around me and traffic blah blah blah, and
she's like berating me loudly in the middle of public.
He said, I'm no gentleman. So finally she ends it
with you need to get to church. And I was like,
(02:58):
I swear to God, I'm not kidding you. My friend
tom My bff Tom was on the phone with me.
He can verify this, and he said, Betty White is
coming after me in a public I wish this was
Betty White. This woman was terrifying. She was wearing like
clam diggers with um white sox, pulled up black s
a S shoes um. Her skin hung loose, and she
(03:22):
had fire in her She wanted to kill me. What
did you say? Did you reply anything? Or did you
just sheepish sleep? Rather, I wasn't sheepish. You're not gonna
say what you said? You can tell me afterwards there, right, okay?
But I was. I wasn't cheapish. I wasn't like entirely mean,
but I didn't I didn't frankly, as you know, I
quit the boy Scouts because I think that it's a
(03:42):
bad idea to just give blanket respect to the old
people because they're old. I've met some old jerks in
my time, and this was actually one of them. So yeah,
but this this week, man three, it's an exciting week.
I never talked about the Bible. It never comes up,
Church never comes up. But here we are, all right, Chuck.
(04:05):
Did Thomas Jefferson right or rewrite the Bible? Fact or fiction? Hey,
that's old school, Josh. That is faction because he um,
he did not rewrite the Bible, but he did cobble
together his own version of the Bible that he thought
(04:25):
was um valid and and should be read. I'll just
say that, which is actually, if you think about it,
really a pretty pretentious and arrogant thing to do. This
wouldn't go over well in today's president If someone said Obama, UM,
(04:45):
put together, you know, different parts of the Bible and
said that this was what I think the Bible should be,
he wouldn't last too long. No, I don't think it
would have ever gone over If Taft had done it,
he would have been like run out of town on
a rail, Like, you can't do that. It's early day,
so you away with anything. Back then, I suspect that
Thomas Jefferson had um Asperger's from some of his uh,
(05:07):
some of his um. His demeanor, the way carrying himself
is incredibly high level of intellect. Um. I suspect that
he had some something along those lines. Right, he might have.
You can also say that he could not have cared
less what people thought of him. He did his own thing.
Highly intelligent guy. Um. And like you said, if it
(05:30):
had come out that the president had done that, a
lot of people are unaware of this, that it wouldn't
go over very well, which is why he didn't let
it out. I don't know that that's why he didn't
let it out. I think he just was doing it
for himself, genuinely. I don't think he was trying to
be secretive about it. But you were saying, like it
wouldn't go over well. Today, there's kind of it's kind
of um fashionable in certain quarters to point out that
(05:54):
the founding fathers were bent on founding a Christian nation.
It's a very contentious thing to say, although a lot
of people that's how they see the United States, right.
I think Thomas Jefferson cutting up the Bible and cutting
out all the miracles and what he considered gobbledygook kind
of undermines that argument a little bit. Don't you think, well,
he was a deist. It's a good time to bring
(06:16):
that up. George Washington was a deist. Benjamin Franklin and
what we call founders, they are they differ from traditional
Christians because they reject miracles, basically a lot of the prophecies,
and they says here they embraced the notion of a
well ordered universe created by God, but God then withdrew
(06:37):
into detached transcendence. They believe like a lot of things
Christians believe, but a lot a lot of people at
the time said this was a way for you to
reconcile your Christianity with all these amazing new scientific findings
that we're finding that kind of fly in the face
of Christianity. Right in Deism was the Enlightenment religion, right um.
(06:58):
And basically the way it looked at God is there's
a creator God, but he's kind of like a clockmaker,
and he created this clock of a universe wounded up
and just stood back to to watch it go. It's
a great way to say. And do you remember, like
in the really uber paranoid late nineties, right before the millennium.
There's like kind of a concept that the universe is
(07:19):
a u the result of an alien experiment. That's kind
of like in the same vein. Actually there's some higher
power that doesn't have a hand in our individual lives,
but start created all this. Yeah, pretty interesting, it is.
So that was That was T J m BF and
g W T Jeff. That's what his nickname today would
(07:42):
be T Jeff. His nickname today is T Jeff as
of now. So um. He also was the he pinned
the Declaration of Independence, we should say, which most people know.
He was also the one who co first elucidated the
wall of separation between church and state. Yeah, not did
not come from the Constitution. No, but he So there's
(08:04):
this Baptist Convention of dan Berry, Yes, the Connecticut Committee
of the dan Berry Baptist Association, and they wrote to
Jefferson saying, is this a Christian nation or not? Basically
he basically pointed to know he said, he said, he said, no,
I I I'm sure you agree with me that religion
(08:25):
is between a man and his God and really eloquently
said no, there's a First Amendment. There's a there's a
clause in the First Amendment that says that that UM
Congress won't um establish a religion, and so I Thomas
Jefferson as president and one of the guys who wrote that,
see it as a wall of separation between church and state.
(08:47):
He thought it was a very very personal thing. Religion
was spirituality was a very personal thing. No one should
step in and tell you what to think about it, right,
It's so personal that he decided to craft his own Bible. Yes.
And one of the reasons he did us because Um,
like we said, he was a deist deist or deist daist.
I think you can go either way. Now he's a Deist.
And he was also very skeptical of who wrote the Bible,
(09:10):
the Gospels in particular. He thought they were quote unlettered
and ignorant. Yeah, basically how he saw the Bible writers. Um,
that's where the name comes from. Yeah, those were the
Gospel writers. But they were also um Platonics. They followed
Plato and wrote around the time of Plato. Um. And
(09:30):
they remember when we were talking about like Halloween, Christmas, Easterday. Yeah,
they're all pagan holidays that we've adopted and christianized in
in an effort Um eastern together. Yeah, it wasn't. Yes,
spring harvest, spring um equinox, vernal equinox. I think it's
what it's called right, vernal and autumnal. Yes, vernal equinox,
(09:53):
and s Tera was a pagan goddess. Anyway, Um, this
is this, This is how he viewed the the Bible
being written like like there was a there was a
person named Jesus of Nazareth. He walked awesome guy, philosopher,
incredible philosopher, had this amazing moral code what right? Um?
(10:16):
And then uh and espoused it to people who remembered it,
passed it down orally, and then somebody finally wrote it down.
But when they were trying to write it down, they
were also trying to establish a church. And Um, so
they added some magic so that they could they could
bring the pagans into the fold a miracles. Yes. And
he also believed and this is where he really wouldn't
(10:39):
jibe with today's UH system as a politician. He did
not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. He did
not believe that he was the son of God. He
thought that he was like Plato, essentially like a spot
on philosopher. But he thought a lot of them, he said. Um.
He wrote a letter to John Adams in eighteen thirteen
and said that the book that he ended up putting together,
(11:02):
which we'll get into the nuts and bolts of that,
but he said he called it the most sublime and
benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered demand. Yeah,
Jesus's philosophy. Yeah, so he clearly thought a lot of
of Jesus's philosophy, and he thought a lot of the
Greek um philosophers and I imagine other religious philosophers as well.
But what he was saying was that what Jesus had
(11:23):
come up with was as good as it gets. He
kind of bashed Plato though, did you see that? Yeah?
He read Plato in the original Greek and was like
many exactly he found it lackluster. Yeah. Yeah, well, I
guess he's hard to please. He read the Bible and
he cut it down to forty six pages. He did.
Christopher Hitchins put it like this, You know, Hits, he's
not he's not a big guy on religion. No, he
(11:46):
kind of actively combats it. But yeah, um on, there's
a forty six second clip on YouTube of Christopher Higgins
debating somebody, and he describes the Jefferson Bible as what
was left after Jefferson took a pair of scissors and
cut out anything that could not buy any intelligent person
be believed. It makes for a slender, convenient ready. And yeah,
(12:06):
I mean, if you take Christopher Hitchins, this is no
surprise to you. If you love Christopher Hitchins, this is
no surprise. Yes, But he got one thing wrong. He
apparently is a razor and not scissors. Small detail. He
literally he went through and was was scratching stuff out,
and then I think he went back and started cutting
stuff out. Well, he probably that he found himself scratching
so much out he got tiresome, and he's like, I
(12:28):
should just see cut out what I do like instead
of scratching out what I don't like. Because all told,
there are thirty one thousand, a hundred three Bible verses
numbered Bible verses, right, but he was just doing the
New Testament, so we're talking seven thousand and seven, right,
and specifically the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which there
(12:49):
well there was more than that, but he he used
a lot for Matthew and Luke two thousand, two hundred
twenty two and Matthew and Luke and all told, he
only had the Jefferson Bible only had nine versus. So
he definitely paired down quite a bit big time. He Um,
he took out everything about he and he took he
took out everything about um Christ's birth, the virgin birth
(13:11):
that was gone. He left in the crucifixion, but it
ends at the burial. There's no resurrection. Yeah. Basically the
last verse was um John nineteen and they ended it.
His book ends with they rolled the stone in front
of the sepulcher and the the end. Uh. He he
left a lot of the Last Supper ing but kept
(13:31):
the part of the Eucharist out. This is my body,
my blood. Yeah. Um. So basically he just kept in
basically the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth and
his philosophy. Yeah. They in the article that he left
what they called what he considered genuine events like the
Sermon on the Mount, certain parables, the way to live
(13:54):
your life. And see, that's always been my deal. I
don't want to get too personal, but you know I
was right after the last two hundred episodes that. Yeah,
I was raised Southern Baptist and it wasn't the best
experience for me. But I still say, I still maintain
that the Bible has is a great moral code, and
there's lots of great parables that teach you how you
(14:14):
should act as a human. And apparently I'm in Jefferson's camp,
because that's what he ended up using as Uh. He
ended up calling it initially the Philosophy of Jesus of
Nazareth and then change that title later to the Life
and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, right, and then uh
in the edition there was a subtitle or how to
(14:36):
get Buying Queens on a dime of day. I'll long
have you been working on that one? Just now? Yeah?
Shut up? So, Um, it clearly wasn't called how to
Win Friends and Influence People, because he he this probably
wasn't a very popular thing to do even back then.
I'm sure it would have the same effect as how
to Win friends and Influence people? Though. Yeah, but he
(14:58):
did keep it quiet it Um, he said it was
for himself. Again, I don't think he kept it quiet.
I think he he was just keeping it for himself.
I disagree with part A of the sentence you just said,
but agree with part B. Thank you. Yea. I have
a quote from him if you want to hear from
the man himself. Uh, Josh is wrong. No, sorry, he said,
(15:19):
I performed the operation for my own use by cutting
verse by verse out of the printed book and arranging
the matter, which is evidently his, and which is as
easily distinguished as diamonds and a dunghill. That's kind of harsh,
but he's saying that the stuff that really came from
Jesus mouth is the gold, the diamonds in the dunghill.
(15:39):
So he extracted all that and that was what he
believed in. Well, yeah, he thought the Platonics were sellouts
that they should have just you know, maybe not added
quite so much. So what happened to it, Josh? What
happened to it? Was it? Basically again, he did it
for himself. Um. I think I read a reference that
he did it kind of on a whim or in um. Uh.
(16:04):
In response to a question from a friend to his
Dr Benjamin Rush, he said, like, how would you characterize
your view of Christianity? So he went about doing that.
I think it's the idea exactly got a razor um
and it was in his private library, which apparently somebody inherited,
and a Smithsonian librarian came across it. What I Cerrus Adler.
(16:25):
What I found funny was Cyrus Adler is a government employee,
came across this and was like, I'm going to sell
list to the Library of Congress. You know though. Yeah,
they did, and they started putting it in print. Congress
ordered it in print. Um. Thomas Jefferson is considered the
father of the Senate. Uh. He was the first vice president. Um.
(16:46):
So he and he wrote the rules of the Senate
that are still in use today. Uh. He just did
it because it was bored. One day, asked Berger's same
regin he cut up the Bible yeah, um, and so
Congress Um. Congress started publishing. I think it published like
nine thousand copies and even still today it's um a
customary welcome gift to new members of Congress. I find
(17:09):
that interesting, like the same Congress who are like, this
is a Christian nation. Yeah, but I mean it's still
in there. That's that's the diamond. But it is very
interesting that they would give an altered version of the
Bible as a gift. Yeah, I mean it's it's not
as odd as if they were to give like Alistair
Crowley's memoirs, but it was definitely a little odd. When
(17:32):
I read that, I was slightly shocked. Yeah, well it
kind of comes it kind of reveals a certain disingenuousness.
Done that, Yeah, a little bit possibly makes you think
at least well, and then lets you know what was
in Thomas Jefferson's mind, and he's easily one of the
most fascinating historical figures we have. You got anything else? No,
(17:54):
if you want to know more about the Jefferson Bible,
you can read this pretty cool article by McGrath. You
can find it online the whole Bible. You can do both.
How about let's get some people this site first, that's true. Uh.
You just type in Jefferson Bible and the handy search
bart how stuff works dot com. Uh, and then after
that you might as well just go read the Jefferson Bible, right, yes, yes,
(18:19):
which leads us to listener questions. So yeah, we we
put out a call on Facebook a couple of weeks
ago for questions and we got bombarded. So we're actually
having to do this in installments, because there are a
lot of good questions. These are the really we need
new questions, man, No, no, no, no, old no. These
are brand new. You're lying every two weeks ago. But
(18:42):
there's still new because we haven't used them. So we're
gonna bust a lot of these pretty quickly. Chuck says,
who's taller between Josh Chuckers and Jerry. Josh is the tallest,
at a robust six ft or so. I'm about on
the nun about five tin, Jerry, how tall are you
behind the curtain? Go ahead, I've got one from Colin.
(19:06):
Who would win in a fist fight? Ire a Glass
or Josh? I think it would be a um we
can actually size we sized him up physically in person now.
I think it would be like a um, humiliating slap
fight for both guys. I don't know that there would
be a fight. Would be more like, um, do you
remember Adam Goldberg in Daisy Confused? Yes? Do you remember
(19:28):
when he's being pulled off or when when um Nikki
Kat's being pulled off at him? Yeah? I think it
would be like that, but both of us, both of
us is Adam Goldberg? Yeah? Uh? Tripp says can you
finally reveal the name of the big box appliance store
that UM did not do? Chuck right with his extended warty.
I don't think that that would be very smart. Do
(19:49):
you know that? Even I don't know what it is.
I don't think that would be very brand smart to do, Josh.
So I'm not going to thank you trip for the question, Chuck.
I'm not reading this one. So here's another one from Natalie.
Would you consider doing a six degrees of separation from
your listeners? I go first. My sister Kathleen went to
(20:10):
ride Dan High School with Chuck. Kathleen egan awesome, So
that's not a question. Even ends in an exclamation point.
Tom says, what's it like being so old? Chuck? Tom?
It is awesome? Go ahead. Okay, there's one from Hannah.
Which is better cake or pie? What do you call
a soft drink? I call it soda. My pubby calls
(20:33):
it pop. That's two questions. I call it coke. I
call it coke as well. I grew up calling it pop. Yeah.
What's better? Cake and pie? Actually, there's nothing better than
a good cake pie. Yeah? I like cake cake pie. Brittany, Oh,
this is Brittany from New York and actually, to answer
that question, pies better remember Brittany britt britt Yes, Brittany says,
(20:54):
does hippie Rob participate in the s y FK drinking
game which we don't sanction? No one knows we're a
hippie robbis and if so, is he the all time
record holder? Uh? I don't even know that hippie Rob
knows that s y s K exists, and of course
she doesn't. I don't think he does. Uh So, this
one's from Bobby. What are your favorite bands of all
times or your favorite songs? My favorite band of all time?
(21:15):
Clear winner is the Pixies. Chuck really oh yeah, probably
go with like the Who or Pavement. Maybe Zeppee Brianna
are favorite fan. Brianna says, what were your first impressions
of each other? I thought Josh was like me when
I first met a Mint. It turns out he sort
of is, and he's sort of not. It's not true
(21:36):
at all. Now I knew we were like fellow Um.
I thought you were a cool guy, reformed bad boys.
You know, you had that pack of cigarettes rolled up
in your sleeve. That was the dig giveaway I've got
one from Ebba. How does Jerry work? She doesn't? Oh,
not true? Um, Christopher, what's it like living in Hotlanta?
(21:58):
Particularly now that the summer starting? It is awful? And
I grew up here and it's still awful. And it's
not like you get used. It's gotten exponentially worse even
since I moved down here. You can't break, It's like
you're swimming outside. Yeah, I got one more. This one
is from Mark. If you could have one superpower, what
would it be? Flying invisibility? Well, those are the questions.
(22:23):
I'm not done yet. I got two more quick ones.
Josh Shan says, would you like cheese with that? Always
of course as the answer to that question. And Joe says,
what is the best most unique piece of free swag
anyone has sent you? And I think we just got
it this week. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with
the Root suit, are you? Yeah? The Root Suit, for
(22:45):
those of you that are always sunny in Philadelphia fans,
is the green Man costume that Charlie wears. And so
I requested a green Man outfit and you won't take
it off? And I got it, and I wrote the
guy today and said thank you so much for the
green Man thing. I'm really excited, and said your life,
your new life begins now, your new life of leaving
absolutely nothing to the imagination. Chuck, it's disturbing. Nobody wants
(23:09):
to see this, So if you have a question for us,
go join our Facebook fan page jerk It's uh Facebook
dot com, YadA YadA, stuff you should know, follow us
on Twitter, s y s K podcast, and as always,
you can send us an email. We still like those.
It's very you know, late nineties, but still it's cute.
(23:29):
You can send it to Stuff podcast at how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
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(23:50):
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