On Jesus
The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words [Jefferson's chief example of this is Calvin].
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.
Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
1 comment:
REPLY TO MR. JEFFERSON:
All due respect, sir; but if Jesus was good and wise, then why did He claim to be God (see the Gospels)?
If Jesus was just a good teacher who came to show us a better way, why did He voluntarily die such a horrible death? Why did He urge men to "repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand" (Matthew 4:17)?
Why did Jesus over and over again fulfill the prophecy of the Old Testament (written some thousand years before Jesus was born)?
It's a bit too late to change Jefferson's mind on the subject, but these are questions that deserve to be asked and answered with an open mind by individuals today. I would heartily recommend D. James Kennedy's book Why I Believe and Lee Stroebel's book The Case for Christ .
(Lee Stroebel is a former atheist legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, who became a Christian as a result of his research).
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