Thomas Jefferson extracted the teachings and life story of Jesus from the four Gospels and, over time, compiled these bits into a book that eventually became The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

Gone are the miracles. Gone is the resurrection. Gone is any hint of anything supernatural.

What remains is a (short) story of a man who lived his life as an example of how things could be better. What remains are the parables that cast moral dilemmas into new light. What remains is the tragedy of people threatened by new ideas and how they lash out against the man they hold responsible.

Is it enlightening? No, not really. There’s, obviously, nothing new in this book. However, I found this distillation of the Gospel to be refreshing and also reaffirming. I’ve identified as a Christian as long as I can remember and while my belief in a God above has waxed and waned over the years, my faith (or perhaps more aptly, my trust) in the teachings of Jesus have never faltered. I believe in what he had to say and the ideals he taught and lived. I try not to get caught up in the contentious nature of the Bible as a whole and its conflicting ideas, but prefer to look to what Jesus said and how he lived. There is wisdom to be found elsewhere in the Bible, but the ground is shakier.

Now, I place no particular authority on Jefferson to deliver religious teachings, but the fact is, he had similar feelings to mine and he acted upon them. The product is a book that streamlines the Gospel story and reveals the bare essentials.

Saying all of this, I wish I could then, in turn, recommend The Jefferson Bible to anyone else. I can’t do that, at least, not without some qualifiers.

Jefferson’s source material (I assume) is the King James translation, which is difficult to follow at best and, at times downright inscrutable. The only reason that I was able to make it through as easily as I did, is that I have been attending church since I was a child and am intimately familiar with the source material already.

Also, I read this version of the book, primarily because it was so inexpensive. Unfortunately for me, it showed. There were lots of typos and printing errors. Sometimes I had difficulty deciding if a word was using an archaic spelling or was simply an error.

There’s no grand conclusion. If you think such a take on the Gospels is  interesting and you have a passing familiarity with the Bible already, go for it. It won’t set you back much and it will only take an evening or two of your time.