Thomas Jefferson was a man of The Enlightenment. He was interested in science and was a voracious reader. He amassed the largest private library in the United States at that time. In 1815, after the British burned the Library of Congress Jefferson sold the library 6,487 books. He thought that Jesus Christ was the greatest moral teacher who ever lived, but he rejected the notion of Christ's divinity and he had a very low opinion of Christianity.
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. - Notes on Virginia, 1782
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. – letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
Jefferson made two bibles. The first was made in 1804 and was titled, The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth. He cut excerpts from two New Testaments, pasted them onto blank pages, and had the pages bound into a book. His task, as he explained in a letter to John Adams, was
abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separate from that as the diamond from the dung hill.
That bible has been lost. He made the second one in 1820 by cutting excerpts from English, French, and Latin/Greek New Testaments, and pasting them onto blank pages. He had the pages bound into a book that he titled, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. He left out all references to the virgin birth, resurrection, and miracles. The book is in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed a committee consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, to design the Great Seal of the United States. None of them submitted designs that acknowledged Christianity. On August 14, 1776, Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, describing the submissions.
Mr. Jefferson proposed. The Children of Israel in the Wilderness, led by a Cloud by day, and a Pillar of Fire by night, and on the other Side Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon Chiefs, from whom We claim the Honour of being descended and whose Political Principles and Form of Government We have assumed.
Jefferson's proposal had an Old Testament theme on one side and Hengist and Horsa, who were 5th-century pagans, on the other.
Since 1610, Virginians had suffered under the Lawes Devine, Morall, and Martiall, barbaric laws that imposed severe punishments, including death, for religious infractions. In 1779, Jefferson introduced the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in the Virginia General Assembly. In 1786, while Jefferson was in Paris, James Madison got the statute passed and later used it as the basis for the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Despite Jefferson's strong aversion to Christianity, he and Madison were fierce defenders of the right to worship as one chose. These are some of Jefferson's comments: