Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third President of the United States and often credited as the author of the Declaration of Independence, though key portions of that document were simply taken from the Virginia Declaration of Rights.

Jefferson was a prominent architect, inventor and scientist. His presidency had significant failures, and is best known for doubling the area of the United States with the controversial Louisiana Purchase from France.

Though Jefferson did not describe his beliefs in that manner, many historians believe him to have been a deist.

With regard to Christianity, Jefferson admired the ethical and moral teachings of Jesus, but did not believe in the divinity of Christ. He produced a compilation "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels," familiarly known as "The Jefferson Bible," in which he included the passages which he felt described Jesus' life and teachings, while omitting references to the miracles and to Jesus' divinity. In an 1803 letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, he stated:

I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of [the Christian religion]. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.

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