JEFFERSON ON ST. PAUL, GOSPEL ACCT. At 01:56 AM 7/6/98 EDT, you wrote: >Sir, > > I have heard it said that the words of the Apostle Paul were purposely >omitted from the Jefferson bible, and furthermore that President Jefferson >actually had a quote of some rather disparaging remarks about Paul. Is this >so? A local "Reverend" from an alternative church declared it as such on the >local access channel and I was looking for the facts. Any assistance would be >greatly appreciated. The book known as "The Jefferson Bible" was orignally titled by Thomas Jefferson, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels." It was not intended to be an extract of the whole Bible or even of the New Testament. Jefferson intended it to be an outline of the life of Jesus, including his moral teachings. Since Paul is not mentioned in the Gospels, he is also not mentioned in The Jefferson Bible. It is true that Jefferson did not think much of Paul, though he did quote him on one or two occasions. He placed Paul among the corrupters of the true message of Jesus, as in the following passage: "Among the sayings and discourses imputed to Him [Jesus] by His biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same Being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to Him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of His disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus [i.e., leader of a school of thought], and first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications of His doctrines, led me to try to sift them apart. I found the work obvious and easy, and that His past composed the most beautiful morsel of morality which has been given to us by man." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1820. ME 15:244 Thus, the "Reverend" was somewhat misleading when he said The Jefferson Bible does not mention Paul, since it was only intended to be a life of Jesus. He was correct in saying that Jefferson had made some rather disparaging remarks about Paul. Best wishes, Eyler Coates