Historical Revisionism

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Do you have any evidence that he ever put his faith in Christ as his personal Saviour?

No, and neither do you have any evidence he didn't. Much has been written pro and con about his faith, but I believe he best put it himself. On June 25, 1819, he wrote to Ezra Stiles Ely, "I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know." That proves nothing either way. The modern caretakers of Monticello seem to go out of their way to prove he was not a Christian, but his writings, his church attendance, the real reasons behind his attempts to ferret out the nuggets of gold from among what he thought were corrupted texts -- many today still make that claim -- paint him at the very least a nominal Christian. Perhaps you can ask him if you see him in heaven. If you don't see him, you'll know he wasn't.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

Could you comment on this from an April 1823 letter to John Adams? (Just added to my post above)


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 Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

It seems pretty clear that he had a high regard for Jesus the man as a reformer and teacher, but denied that He was Christ.

 

[ShagNappy]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/?no-ist=&page=1

But in the 1790s, Davis continues, “the most remarkable thing about Jefferson’s stand on slavery is his immense silence.” And later, Davis finds, Jefferson’s emancipation efforts “virtually ceased.”

...And by looking closely at Monticello, we can see the process by which he rationalized an abomination to the point where an absolute moral reversal was reached and he made slavery fit into America’s national enterprise.

The archaeologists also found a bundle of raw nail rod—a lost measure of iron handed out to a nail boy one dawn. Why was this bundle found in the dirt, unworked, instead of forged, cut and hammered the way the boss had told them? Once, a missing bundle of rod had started a fight in the nailery that got one boy’s skull bashed in and another sold south to terrify the rest of the children—“in terrorem” were Jefferson’s words—“as if he were put out of the way by death.” Perhaps this very bundle was the cause of the fight.

Jefferson’s 4 percent theorem threatens the comforting notion that he had no real awareness of what he was doing, that he was “stuck” with or “trapped” in slavery, an obsolete, unprofitable, burdensome legacy. The date of Jefferson’s calculation aligns with the waning of his emancipationist fervor. Jefferson began to back away from antislavery just around the time he computed the silent profit of the “peculiar institution.”

And this world was crueler than we have been led to believe. A letter has recently come to light describing how Monticello’s young black boys, “the small ones,” age 10, 11 or 12, were whipped to get them to work in Jefferson’s nail factory, whose profits paid the mansion’s grocery bills. This passage about children being lashed had been suppressed—deliberately deleted from the published record in the 1953 edition of Jefferson’s Farm Book, containing 500 pages of plantation papers. That edition of the Farm Book still serves as a standard reference for research into the way Monticello worked.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Could you comment on this from an April 1823 letter to John Adams? (Just added to my post above)

Why? Will it make it anymore clear whether or not he was? Probably not. No one knows who else is a Christian C4K. We can make best-guess judgments, but the final standing is Christ's alone, and we'll be shocked to see some people in heaven -- who will be just as shocked to us there.

Frankly, whether Jefferson was a Christian or not is irrelevant. His obvious belief in God, Creator of the universe, and his contributions to the Declaration and the Constitution based on those beliefs, are what put Christian principles into a secular government founded by Christian people.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

to us .

His obvious belief in God, Creator of the universe, and his contributions to the Declaration and the Constitution based on those beliefs, are what put Christian principles into a secular government

I agree with this segment of your post.

 

[church mouse guy]

And in addition to all this Jefferson didn't even practice what he claimed he believed (and that God had ordained) - he owned people. Apparently some men were created to be owned by others. Hardly equals - and hardly life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for those folks.

That statement, C4K, is the quintessential historical revisionist statement.

 

[church mouse guy]

Could you comment on this from an April 1823 letter to John Adams? (Just added to my post above)


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 Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

It seems pretty clear that he had a high regard for Jesus the man as a reformer and teacher, but denied that He was Christ.

Jefferson was not a theologian and should not have dabbled in the subject publically. Furthermore, he was a colonial by birth and thereby under repression. Imagine what Simon Bolivar had to contend with.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

That statement, C4K, is the quintessential historical revisionist statement.

How it is revisionism to state an historical fact about which there is no debate? Jefferson owned people. That is history. It is not
revisionism.

 

[Crabtownboy]

How it is revisionism to state an historical fact about which there is no debate? Jefferson owned people. That is history. It is not
revisionism.

Seems to be an uncomfortable fact that some would like to forget. Indeed he did own slaves, a lot of slaves, and in all probability he fathers several children with his slave, Sally Hemings.

Jefferson acquired most of the over six hundred slaves he owned during his life through the natural increase of enslaved families. He acquired approximately 175 slaves through inheritance: about 40 from the estate of his father, Peter Jefferson, in 1764, and 135 from his father-in-law, John Wayles, in 1774. Jefferson purchased fewer than twenty slaves in his lifetime, in some cases to unite spouses and in others to satisfy labor needs at Monticello.

http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/property

In 1998, the scientific journal Nature published the results of DNA tests designed to shed new light on questions first asked some two hundred years earlier: Did Thomas Jefferson have a relationship with a woman who was his slave? Did that relationship produce children?
Now, the new scientific evidence has been correlated with the existing documentary record, and a consensus of historians and other experts who have examined the issue agree that the question has largely been answered: Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings's children, and quite probably all six. The language of "proof" does not translate perfectly from science and the law to the historian's craft, however. And the DNA findings in this case are only one piece of a complicated puzzle that many in previous generations worked hard to make sure we might never solve.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/true/

 

[church mouse guy]

How it is revisionism to state an historical fact about which there is no debate? Jefferson owned people. That is history. It is not
revisionism.

You are complaining that the GOP-supported civil rights act of 1964 was not enacted in 1776. Your complaint is irrelevant to the Revolution. England did not free her slaves until the early 19th century. Islam still has slaves but that is also irrelevant to the American Revolution. Jefferson did not end sexual slavery either, and that involves countless millions to this day.

You seem to cling to the notion that man in a state of total depravity gave other men human rights.

 

[Rolfe]

His obvious belief in God, Creator of the universe, and his contributions to the Declaration and the Constitution based on those beliefs, are what put Christian principles into a secular government founded by Christian people.

I agree with this segment of your post.

Second that.

 

[Crabtownboy]

Do you have any evidence that he ever put his faith in Christ as his personal Saviour? I don't know how any Christian could call Paul the great corrupter of the teachings of Jesus.

And, pretty obviously, I never called him a slave driver - I said he owned people, and he did.

And then there is this - from another letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

'
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 Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.'

Another Jefferson quote on Jesus:

"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it. Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him 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 him to the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, the roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and imposters, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and the first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus."
..........To W. Short, 1820

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/thomas_jefferson.htm

 

[church mouse guy]

Once you really start to examine all the facts - especially the ones that are not so well known - you learn about Randolph Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's brother, who lived close enough to visit on a regular - and apparently merry - basis. Even Joseph Ellis, the dean of American Jefferson experts, admits that he did not know of Randolph's existence at the time he wrote his Jefferson opus "American Sphinx'. The obscure Randolph was a long-time widower who was well-known at the time for after-hours reveling in the slave quarters at Monticello.

http://www.rumormillnews.com/jefferson.htm

 

[Rippon]

No, and neither do you have any evidence he didn't. Much has been written pro and con about his faith, but I believe he best put it himself. On June 25, 1819, he wrote to Ezra Stiles Ely, "I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know." That proves nothing either way. The modern caretakers of Monticello seem to go out of their way to prove he was not a Christian, but his writings, his church attendance, the real reasons behind his attempts to ferret out the nuggets of gold from among what he thought were corrupted texts -- many today still make that claim -- paint him at the very least a nominal Christian. Perhaps you can ask him if you see him in heaven. If you don't see him, you'll know he wasn't.

You have gone out of your way to defend the indefensible TND.

Some Thomas Jefferson quotes follow:

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

I trust there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.

We find in the writings of his biographers [ i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John]...a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications.

 

[church mouse guy]

The Democrats need to say if they believe that human rights came from government or from Jesus. If human rights are the gift of Jesus, then Jefferson is correct. If human rights came from government of men in a state of total depravity, then Jefferson is wrong and a poor founder of the Democrat Party, but more importantly there really is no such thing as human rights but only government rights.

 

[Rippon]

In fact, through His common blessing, He provides comfort to each man, giving him time to note, examine and analyze the evidence for God, who draws all men to Him through that evidence.

Romans 1:19,20 has nothing to do with the biblical doctrine of drawing. I suppose the Romans passage is your starting point. But it doesn't establish your novel twist. All people know the reality of God's existence. It is plain to all and understood by all, so everyone is without excuse. But again that has nothing to do with biblical drawing.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

You are complaining that the GOP-supported civil rights act of 1964 was not enacted in 1776. Your complaint is irrelevant to the Revolution. England did not free her slaves until the early 19th century. Islam still has slaves but that is also irrelevant to the American Revolution. Jefferson did not end sexual slavery either, and that involves countless millions to this day.

You seem to cling to the notion that man in a state of total depravity gave other men human rights.

This has nothing to do with what was the law. Jefferson said God created all men equal, but he owned other men. He denied them of their 'God given' rights of 'liberty and pursuit of happiness.'

He did not practice what he said he believed.

Cold hard facts are not revisionism. Denying those facts is.

 

[church mouse guy]

This has nothing to do with what was the law. Jefferson said God created all men equal, but he owned other men. He denied them of their 'God given' rights of 'liberty and pursuit of happiness.'

He did not practice what he said he believed.

Cold hard facts are not revisionism. Denying those facts is.

It is off the subject. You are complaining that Jefferson did not make illegal what was legal soon enough. It is somewhat like why didn't we invade the Soviet Union after the defeat of Germany, Japan, and Italy. At any rate, Jefferson is the idol of the Democrats and you have confused the issue greatly by suggesting that they drop their idol and you have implied that human rights do not originate with Jesus but with slave-owners like Jefferson. Why don't you clarify your positions once in a while instead of presumably always trying to foster debate?

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

It is off the subject. You are complaining that Jefferson did not make illegal what was legal soon enough. It is somewhat like why didn't we invade the Soviet Union after the defeat of Germany, Japan, and Italy. At any rate, Jefferson is the idol of the Democrats and you have confused the issue greatly by suggesting that they drop their idol and you have implied that human rights do not originate with Jesus but with slave-owners like Jefferson. Why don't you clarify your positions once in a while instead of presumably always trying to foster debate?

You are incorrect. I am not complaining about the law. The law did not require people to own slaves. Jefferson chose to own men despite the fact that he claimed all men have the God given right to their liberty and the pursuit of their own happiness. It is about his own personal choices - not about changing the law. If Jefferson believed what he said why didn't he act on it himself?

I am not saying anything about Democrats and their supposed idol. I know nothing about since that part of the debate since I have never voted for or supported a Democrat for any kind of office.

 

[church mouse guy]

Okay, are you saying that Jefferson is incorrect in the Declaration of Independence or what?