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The Jefferson Bible
Item #10511
Price (non-member): $35.00
Price (member): $31.50
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Smithsonian Books |
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The Jefferson Bible, Smithsonian Edition: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth
by Thomas Jefferson
At 77 years of age, Thomas Jefferson constructed a book that he entitled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Assembling excerpts from the four gospels of the New Testament, he rearranged them to tell a chronological and edited story of Jesus’s life, parables, and moral teaching. Jefferson cut from printed texts in four languages—English, French, Latin, and Greek—seeking to clarify and distill Jesus’s teachings, which he believed to be “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.” The beautiful handmade book became well worn from frequent use even in Jefferson’s lifetime.
The Jefferson Bible, Smithsonian Edition, a full-color facsimile created from high-resolution digital photographs of recently conserved and rebound pages, includes all four languages and Jefferson’s handwritten notes. No other edition so clearly provides a window into the mind of its maker.
An introduction by Smithsonian curators Harry R. Rubenstein and Barbara Clark Smith explains Jefferson’s intentions in creating the volume and the ways that his endeavor reflected his Enlightenment ideals and Revolutionary spirit. Smithsonian conservator Janice Stagnitto Ellis’s essay on conservation reveals surprising insights into how Jefferson crafted the book so precisely. Faithful to the unique artifact so painstakingly created by Thomas Jefferson himself, The Jefferson Bible, Smithsonian Edition makes the thoughts of a great American mind accessible for generations to come.
208 pages, full color reproduction of the original Jefferson Bible containing 4 languages.
Museum Provenance
The red leather book resides in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Behring Center. The Thomas Jefferson Bible is on exhibit at the Albert H. Small Documents Gallery in the National Museum of American History.
Every Smithsonian purchase will arrive with a museum provenance card explaining how it is adapted from or inspired by an object or objects in our collection.
