Thomas Jefferson's faith was of an eclectic sort; as he said, "I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know." He had a general interest in Christianity, seen through the lens of his Enlightenment philosophical views. He greatly admired the gospels and their central figure Jesus, but gave them a particularly Jeffersonian treatment in his own editing and reordering of them. This essay by Eugene R. Sheridan, is regarded by scholars as an authoritative treatment of a complex topic.
The essay in this book originally appeared as the introduction to Jefferson's Extracts from the Gospels, a volume in the second series of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, published by Princeton University Press in 1983.
