The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson

One of the ways to destroy a people is to take away, deconstruct, or destroy their history. This was done with Jefferson. The Founders of our great American experiment were indeed men of faith, and character. And the way to determine that is to go back to the original documents and source material. Jefferson was an American Hero.

This book includes many quotes from Jefferson that have been overlooked for far too long. It is appalling that it has been the victim of censoring tactics by those who want to silence their ideological opponents.I am amazed at the vitriol aimed at David Barton. Many of the reviewers just throw out insults, and don't directly confront Barton's arguments. Others misrepresent what Barton wrote. The sad thing is they think of themselves as the "intelligent people".Some reviewers claim Barton portrays Jefferson as a straight up orthodox Christian. That is false. Here is what Barton himself wrote: "quotes can be selected to make Jefferson appear to be either a mainstream Christian or a pagan heretic, depending on the period of Jefferson's life from which the statements are taken.... While there definitely were periods when Jefferson did challenge some specific doctrines, there never was a time when he questioned the overall value of Christianity to individuals or to a nation." --(Barton, David. The Jefferson Lies: pp. 166-167)I noticed some missed the point about Jefferson's religious schooling, saying it is irrelevant what type of education he had. What makes it relevant is that Jefferson used many of the same people and teaching methods in the school he founded. That shows that he approved of including religion in education.It is not true Barton made many factual errors. He uses historical quotes from Jefferson and his contemporaries. It is well known that Barton has a large collection of original manuscripts, and uses them. Quoting Jefferson's actual written words cannot be a factual error. The reviewers must mean that they disagree with Barton's interpretation. That's okay. In academic endeavors it is acceptable to disagree over interpretation, but it is not acceptable to silence one's opponents.Another reviewer says Barton denied Jefferson's Bible. Apparently, he only looked at the table of contents. If he had read the book he would have seen that Barton did NOT deny it exists. He devoted a chapter to describing the compilation Jefferson made, although he says he would not have called it a Bible. Barton describes how Jefferson put together excerpts from the Gospels for his personal use, to study and meditate on before he went to bed. I have read the Jefferson Bible myself, and I can testify that while it does not have Jesus' miracles, it contains a number of religious elements, such as: God the Father, prayer, resurrection, the Judgment, and heaven. Here are some examples (all are quotes of Jesus' words):"But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." --(The Jefferson Bible: chap 12, verses 68-69)"And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." --(The Jefferson Bible: ch 12, vs 72-73)"Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." --(The Jefferson Bible: ch 13, vs 9)"Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to... stand before the Son of man. When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another... (note: "Son of man" is Jesus' title for himself.) Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." --(The Jefferson Bible: ch 14, vs 33-34, 37)Surely the man who meditated on these words was a religious man.

In this book David Barton tries to convince the reader that Jefferson was an extremely religious man and that all of his decisions were based on divine intervention (not really, just me exaggerating). It is really disheartening to see this "Jefferson debate" taking place. It seems that the non-religious want to paint him with the "I am a secular" brush and the religious fanatics want to pain him with the "I am a Saint" brush. Neither one suits me at this point in time. I believe that Jefferson was a religious person as is proof by his own words on many letters he personally penned. I do not think he was anything like some of the "evangelists" today. It think that trying to label him with any of the two labels takes away from the other many Jefferson accomplishments. With that said, Jefferson was a complicated person in the sense that he was a well read person and a person with many interests and talents. He was a deep person and a deep thinker. This is true of many of the people during that time and theretofore. He wrote to his nephew, "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." I think that Mr. Jefferson did not want a government to be tied to any religion or any religion tied to a government.The premise of this book is to prove the "myths" of Jefferson to be false. Although I agree with SOME (few) of Mr. Barton's assertions, it seems he took the liberty to interpret certain things through a religious prism when it probably should not have been. The book however does whet the pallet to read addition works of Mr. Jefferson. One of the books recommended to me when I commented on a review here at Amazon was, "Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson" by Alan Pell Crawford. I am interested in researching the many phases of this remarkable man, specifically his religious beliefs and how they changed through out his lifetime and/or how they stayed the same.Critics are harsh of Mr. Barton asserting that references in the book are not primary-source references. Honestly, I have not looked at all of them as more than 30% of the total pages (via Kindle) were bibliography (not a very long book). However, I did look at some and they appeared to be "creditable". I plan to go back and review it (on the Kindle it is difficult to do though).The book tries to dispel the myth regarding Jefferson fathering the son of one of his slaves. Mr. Barton points to media bias where false information regarding DNA results in the late 1990's was leaked and all media outlets ran with the story. A couple of weeks later, the source admitted that the information was false. The retraction did not get the same fan-fair as did the former story. I believe this.Other myths included: Jefferson starting a secular college (University of Virginia) in 1819, The writing of the "Jefferson Bible" which we know he did, and why he actually did it, also the myth that Jefferson hated clergymen. These are just a few. If you like Jefferson, I recommend the book at a minimum for contrast to other works about Jefferson. An author I know said "..Barton starts with his conclusions and then tries to prove them." this is true. If you are opened minded and take it as a contrast piece, you should be OK. If you are convinced that Jefferson was not religious, this book will not change your mind. If you believe he was very religious, this will strengthen your agenda.