Secretary Clough on Jefferson's Bible
The head of the Smithsonian Institution details the efforts American History Museum conservators took to repair the artifact
- By G. Wayne Clough
- Smithsonian magazine, October 2011, Subscribe
At age 77, Thomas Jefferson, after two terms as president, turned to a project that had occupied his mind for at least two decades—the creation of a book of moral lessons drawn from the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, Mark and John. With painstaking precision, Jefferson cut verses from editions of the New Testament in English, French, Greek and Latin. He pasted these onto loose blank pages, which were then bound to make a book. He titled his volume The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth; it has become known as the Jefferson Bible. Because Jefferson found this project intensely personal and private, he acknowledged the book’s existence only to a few friends, saying that he read it before retiring at night.
Thanks to the research and efforts of Cyrus Adler, librarian of the Smithsonian Institution from 1892 to 1909, we were able to purchase the Jefferson Bible from Jefferson’s great-granddaughter Carolina Randolph, in 1895. In 2009 a preservation team led by Janice Stagnitto Ellis, paper conservator at the National Museum of American History (NMAH), discovered that the book’s binding was damaging its fragile pages; to save them she temporarily removed it. Earlier this year, I visited the conservation lab at the NMAH to see the fruit of the yearlong conservation treatment. Having bought a copy of the Jefferson Bible some 40 years ago, I was especially fascinated as Ellis showed me the original loose folios with cutouts pasted on by Jefferson himself.
With the help of museum staff and the Museum Conservation Institute, the conserved Jefferson Bible will be unveiled in an exhibition (November 11-May 28, 2012) at NMAH’s Albert H. Small Documents Gallery. The exhibition will tell the story of the Jefferson Bible and explain how it offers insights into Jefferson’s ever-enigmatic mind. Visitors will see the newly conserved volume, two of the New Testament volumes from which Jefferson cut passages and a copy of the 1904 edition of the Jefferson Bible requested by Congress, with an introduction by Adler. This Congressional request began a nearly 50-year tradition of giving copies to new senators. The exhibition will be accompanied by an online version. Smithsonian Books will release the first full-color facsimile of the Jefferson Bible on November 1, and the Smithsonian Channel will air a documentary, “Jefferson’s Secret Bible,” in February 2012. For more information and to purchase a copy of the facsimile, please visit Americanhistory.si.edu/jeffersonbible.
Jefferson’s views on religion were complex, and he was reluctant to express them publicly. “I not only write nothing on religion,” Jefferson once told a friend, “but rarely permit myself to speak on it.” Now, nearly two centuries after he completed it, the Smithsonian Institution is sharing Jefferson’s unique, handmade book with America and the world.
G. Wayne Clough is Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
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Comments (10)
I have a copy of the 1905 Cyrus Adler edition too. Any idea what it is worth? Haven't seen it on auction at all.
Posted by Thomas Taylor on March 18,2012 | 08:28 PM
I have an old Jefferson Bilble that is at least 106 years old. I found it up it up in my attic. It was given to some one and dated 1905.
How can I tell if it has any value?
Posted by John O'Steen on February 19,2012 | 01:32 PM
I have a copy of the 1904 WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE of The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. This copy was given to me. I would like to know if this copy would have any value.
Posted by Gary Spears on February 15,2012 | 11:45 AM
One source shows the 1769 of the KJV books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as containing 82590 words. How many words are contained in, say, the 1804 (or other) version of the Jefferson Bible? My Google searches provide much information but this simple measure has eluded me and I would rather not have to count the words.
Posted by Gene Wunderlich on January 24,2012 | 08:22 PM
Can anyone tell me what French Bible Jefferson used? Protestant? Which translation?
Posted by mary bowen on December 24,2011 | 01:07 PM
I would like to purchase the Jefferson Bible. How do I go about that?
Posted by Bob Suda on December 4,2011 | 03:08 AM
I have a copy of the Jefferson Bible printed by the Washington Government Printing Office in 1904,one of 9,000 produced for the Congress (3,000 for the Senate and 6,000 for the House). It is complete, but without the front and back cover. The ribbing is still in tact. Does anyone know where I could obtain an accurate appraisal of its worth? I realize that it may not be worth much, but I am curious. Thanks.
Posted by Rich Long on October 24,2011 | 05:08 PM
The Jefferson Bible is available through SmithsonianStore.com -
http://www.smithsonianstore.com/books-media/historical-books/the-jefferson-bible-10511.html
Posted by Smithsonian.com on October 18,2011 | 01:24 PM
Jefferson believed Jesus was an important philosopher and teacher of morals. Jefferson in no way believed that Jesus was the Son of God.
Jefferson worked hard his entire adult life to promote a type of Christianity that allowed for his version of reason to prevail. His thoughts on religion were well known, even notorious. He created to two Jefferson Bibles, the first in 1804, the latter in 1819. The 1804 edition is lost to time, but he did try to get a few of his liberal friends to approve it before he published it. They demurred. In 1819, Jefferson secretly went back to work chopping up bibles, to take out the parts he didn't like or believe. Jefferson wrote to John Adams that it was easy, like picking out diamonds from a dunghill.
Mr. Clough seems to have sanitized Jefferson's editing of what many Americans believe to be the work of God. Jefferson's slicing up bibles was certainly presumptuous, some would say blasphemous. Clearly, he was no Christian by definition. Maybe Jefferson believed in a God, but Christians believe in Jesus' divinity. We believe the only way to salvation is through Jesus. If Jesus was a mere mortal teacher of morals, as Jefferson would have us believe, Jesus was also a lunatic because He proclaimed himself the Son of God and asked us to choose to believe Him, or not. Jefferson chose not.
Posted by Matthew Collins on October 2,2011 | 03:13 PM
When will the Jefferon Bible be available for purchase? Also what would the cost be?
Posted by Juliet S. Jiracek on September 30,2011 | 03:38 PM