Personal Jesus

 Vinson Cunningham, "Personal Jesus: What Thomas Jeffereson did to the Gospels," New Yorker, January 4 & 11, 2021,  pp. 77-80. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/what-thomas-jefferson-could-never-understand-about-jesus

"The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" was brought to public attention in 1895 by Cyrus Adler, an observant Jew from Arkansas, who was a librarian and a curator of religious items at the Smithsonian.  Nearly a decade earlier, as a doctoral student searching the private library of a wealthy family, Adler had happened upon a set of Bibles that Jefferson had owned, with key passages of the Gospels snipped from their pages.  Now, charged with mounting an exhibition on American religion and still mulling over that discovery, Adler finally figured out where the missing passages had gone: into Jefferson's little book, which was hidden away in the library of Carolina Ramsey Randolph, Jefferson's great-granddaughter.  Adler bought the book from Randolph for four hundred dollars and promptly put it on display in the Capitol, where in Jefferson's time, it would almost certainly have been a scandal. Now it was met mostly with affectionate enthusiasm, as another example of Jefferson's wide-ranging brilliance.  [p.80]

Comment

     A librarian/historian solves a puzzle of why Thomas Jefferson cut up his Bible and tracks down the missing pages.  This story has all the elements of librarian heroism, recognizing and saving an important historical document. The fact that he put it on display illustrates a sense of triumph which I have felt myself upon discovering hidden treasure.