Thomas Jefferson believed that the New Testament needed a good editor to separate out the moral teachings of Jesus from the myths and miracles found in the Gospels. In what some might have considered sacrilegious at the time (or even today, for that matter), he took several versions of the Bible and cut out the passages that meant the most to him. As he wrote to John Adams in 1814, “It is as easy to separate those parts as to pick out diamonds from dunghills” (via The Atlantic).

In 1804, while serving as president, Jefferson made his first attempt at creating his own Bible. He used two English versions of the King James Version to produce “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth.” But this 46-page-long collage of quotes “was too hastily done however, being the work of one or two evenings only, while I lived at Washington, overwhelmed with other business” (via Monticello). No copy of this book survives. Jefferson tried again in 1819 while living at his home Monticello in Virginia. This time, he used several Bibles in English, French, Greek, and Latin. The well-educated Jefferson could compare the different versions, and he pasted the passages he liked best on blank paper. He “glued down lines from each of the Gospels in four columns, Greek and Latin on one side of the pages, and French and English on the other,” Harry Rubenstein, chair and curator of the National Museum of American History, explained to Smithsonian Magazine.

Thomas Jefferson's Bible focused on moral teachings

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