Jefferson did what I also did before I ever heard of Jefferson's Bible -- he read the Gospels for what JC actually said, and rejected anything that was inconsistent with what JC actually said.
The vast majority of people you would call "Biblical scholars" I would call practitioners of mystical mumbo-jumbo.
Jefferson was trying to cut out the obvious accretions of irrelevance.
One of the most obvious accretion of irreleavancy is trying to make Jesus into the Jewish Messiah according to prophesy in the Old Testament.
It's obvious to anybody who is using logic and reason that what Jews meant, and still mean, by "Messiah" is someone who will restore them to temporal power similar to what they had before the destruction of the Temple.
And it's also obvious that JC has nothing to do with that.
The reason I recommended Jefferson's Bible to you is that you questioned whether JC's ethical and moral philosophy showed up anyplace but the Sermon on the Mount. I think that question demonstrates that you need to go back and re-read the Gospels.
For example, one of Christ's first sermons advises people that it is OK to work on the Sabbath if you are doing good things that need to be done, like tending to the sick. "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." In other words, the purpose of the Sabbath is to give man a day of rest, but sometimes you need to work, like when you are taking care of someone who is sick, or something else very important, and you can rest another time.
Go back and read it. |
