What Thomas Jefferson Could Never Understand About Jesus

the intervening years, a religion of the powerful and the dominant, used sometimes as an instrument of oppression, must not tempt us into believing that it was thus in the mind and life of Jesus. “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” Wherever his spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage; for he announced the good news that

this general thrust, of a very Jewish Jesus who was nevertheless opposed to some high-profile features of first-century Judaism, seems to me the most viable one if we are to do justice, not just to the evidence of the synoptic gospels (they, after all, are easy game for any critic who wants to avoid their implications) but more particularly to the

As Sam Harris said:1 It is not enough that Jesus was a man who transformed himself to such a degree that the Sermon on the Mount could be his heart’s confession. He also had to be the Son of God, born of a virgin, and destined to return to earth trailing clouds of glory. The effect of such dogma is to place the example of Jesus forever out of reach

In the stories about Jesus a lot of people, including his own family, are uncertain about exactly who Jesus is and what

Even after being drawn to Jesus, people are more likely to try to add Jesus to their current lifestyle than to abandon sinful behaviors as a necessary element in embracing biblical discipleship.

The idea that there are multiple paths to truth is more palatable to post-Christian people than accepting Jesus’ claim of exclusivity.

This is another reason

The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.

rather does it heighten the challenge which his life presents, for such reflection reveals him as the product of the constant working of the creative mind of God upon the life, thought, and character of a race of men. Here is one who was so conditioned and organized within himself that he became a perfect instrument for the embodiment of a set of i

Jesus is unquestionably within the human story, but he is remembered as one who absorbed and did not transmit deprivation and violence. And that is hopelessly paradoxical.