My attitude toward Jefferson's Bible editing

Here's a very good article about Founding Father, President Jefferson, who cut and pasted the Gospels in the Bible to eliminate all miraculous and what he felt were superfluous events and retained only the actual sayings and teachings of Jesus.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs5-2008jul05,0,7730914.story

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Now, I would expect that people would think I would be upset over his actions and his attitude. But they would be wrong, and it would be based on the same misunderstanding that caused Jefferson to discard the miraculous events. This is why.

Without the miracles, the Bible would never have been written. From the first five books, written by Moses, who had extensive miraculous personal interactions with God, "face to face" as it were, to the final book, where St. John is miraculously taken to heaven by the angel to witness the Apocalypse, without the miracles there would be no discourse between God and humans, which is what the Bible records.

You see, rational people, especially those who grew up, like the Founding Fathers, in wealthy and privileged settings complete with an education, view the Bible wrongly. They think it is a text, sprinkled with miracles to make it mysterious, believable and awe inspiring. But they forget that plenty of smart and holy people walked around with clever things to say, but none of them were written down and called a Bible. Why? Because people are not foolish. They do not consider something, especially the ancient Israelites, to have come from God unless there is one heck of a lot of miracles to prove it. It is the witnessing of divine actions that "consecrate" a person to be someone who henceforth is authentically hearing God and has something to write down in a book, which then becomes part of the holy scripture.

What you really need to appreciate is that the Old Testament is a series of books by a series of authors who have witnessed to miraculous events in pretty much each book over a period of two thousand years.... and these miraculous events were all encounters with the one and same God. It is the miraculous dialogue with the SAME God by different people over thousands of years, and not waves of "rational discovery" or different gods popping in and out that makes it a literal and actual history that merits being recorded and preserved.

Likewise all the preachers, even St. John the Baptist, of the New Testament would never have gotten into the public consciousness, say nothing of attract Apostles who spread the faith and died for it, if the miracles had not occurred. There were LOTS of worthy preachers, Jewish and otherwise, who talked a good talk of holiness, some orthodox and some not so much. But none of them stood the test of time because they did not deliver on the miracles. It really is as simple, and profound, as that.

God knows humans full well, obviously. So for the four thousand year Judeo-Christian faith history he has produced the miracles with one voice, one God, one belief system, and one family tree consistently to person after person after person, culminating in Jesus Christ, who was actually empowered by him to act miraculously on God's behalf. Incidentally both the Bible and the Qur'an point this out about Jesus (Isa), that he performed miracles using God's first hand will and permission. THAT is what made the Bible even possible, and why those who did not "deliver the miracle goods" found that their teachings and preachings are totally lost in time.

See, rationalists and deists think like modern humans who are writing a text book. They think a bunch of do gooders sat down and decided to write the Bible one day, including all sorts of worthy and moral maxims. It's actually the reverse case. Humans were so awestruck when miraculous dialogue with Gods and events at his behest happened that they recorded the deeds, because as Jesus taught humans "see and then they believe." People just do not go along with even good and moral teachings if that's all they are, especially not in those days of slavery, brutality, and desperate struggle for daily survival. God literally had to burn the bush, talk to Moses, appear in a tent among the Israelites on a daily basis, appear to prophets century after century, guide their hands to anoint kings, instruct them in battles, pound morals and good behavior into their heads, and finally send the Messiah, fully empowered to perform miracles at the behest of God himself. The miracles happen first, time after time, followed by the writing of the morality and teaching. Miracles, get attention, write the book. Miracles, get attention, write the book. Miracles, get attention, write the book.

That is one of the wonders of the Bible, because if you read it you understand that it is thousands of years of individual encounters of a miraculous nature between the same God, time after time, and different individuals in vastly different generations. It is that constancy of dialogue with the one true singular monotheistic God that is what makes it a Bible, not the moral code it contains. The moral codes are given only after a genuine miraculous encounter that authenticates to generation after generation that it is the same God. Remember, even Saul turned to Paul had to prove to the Apostles that it was the risen Christ who had appeared to him and converted him. There is that constancy of miracle/teaching, miracle/teaching, miracle/teaching throughout both the Old and New Testaments.

That's why someone like Jefferson doesn't "get" that the miracles are the literal activities that triggered the attention getting of humans, the authenticity of the God with whom they are in dialogue, and THEN the writing down of the history, the codes, the wisdom, the teaching and the events that transpire as a result, such as the Gospels and Acts.

I hope this helps with the understanding of what the Bible really is, and why it is not just a collection of good things to do.

Just another thought, in fact, wouldn't that be an interesting study guide or book to write. Look at each book of the Bible and chapter by chapter indicate what miracle triggered the belief or the dialogue or the historical events that followed from it. One would have an instant, strong transportation into the actual mindset and development of the Bible because that is indeed how it unfolded in its development.