I’m not sure why you chose Howard Zinn to be your example.  If my guess is right, he probably had a secret FBI file showing that he was a Communist sympathizer; one of your pet political activist projects if I’m not mistaken.  You are definitely a true Skousen (John Birch Society) acolyte. 

Oak, I see that you are trying to detract from the debate, yet again.  I never said that Howard Zinn was or wasn’t a true historian. I never mentioned him at all.  You suddenly threw him into the mix as a vain attempt to counterbalance your own right-wing political activism with an activist historian on the left (Zinn).  In reality, I don’t believe there is such a thing as a dispassionate historian, but I do believe that there are people out there that try hard to push politics aside when looking at historical facts when attempting to paint a historical picture.  I don’t believe that Zinn fits that bill just like I believe you or Beck don’t fit the bill either.  (I at least credit Zinn with specializing in history as a career as opposed to historical researching amateurs who make their living from crunching numbers or entertaining people on T.V.)

What this country needs is sanity from those who are willing to push their own personal politics aside when studying history and discerning the truth.   

Right, TRUE historians like Howard Zinn aren’t ideologues.

I suppose someone spends their lifetime collecting documents and publicizing stuff about them and some people get all upset and defensive and will defend their faulty opinions to the bitter end. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this, even on this forum.

 A true historian is someone who is trained to do historical research in as dispassionate manner possible, not looking to simply disregard those facts that don’t fit a preconceived ideology. 

I shook my head in disbelief while attending BYU and listening to my religion teachers attempt to prove the veracity of the Book of Mormon by selecting tidbits of Aztec and Mayan history and then connecting the dots to fit the Book of Mormon world.  I found some things very interesting, but they just don’t hold up in the greater academic world because there is too much manufactured glue holding those tidbits together. 

Cleon Skousen, Glenn Beck, Oak Norton and other political ideologues have become quite adept at convincing the weak-minded using parsed history or ‘out of context” techniques.  For example, there are just as many quotes supporting Thomas Jefferson’s skepticism over religion as there is showing a belief system, but rather than have an admission that we just don’t know what Thomas Jefferson believed, people on this forum are trying to peddle a definitive answer.   There are certainly a lot of historical hacks out there and hacks tend to quote hacks as long as fits their belief system.  Some come into the debate already believing Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a deist and some come into the debate believing he was a deist.  The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. 

I guess some people spend so much of their life-times formulating their wrong opinions that when someone tosses out a few facts to the contrary, they get all upset and defensive and will defend their faulty opinions to the bitter end.  I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this, even on this forum.        

 My point was this: You used the Jefferson administration’s paying for an church for the Indians to be an indication that he was not a deist… but the church was clearly not there as a proponent for Jefferson’s own beliefs (he was certainly not a Catholic), so that in no way indicates that he was not a deist.

 Who determines who is a true historian and who is not? A historian is a scholar of history. David Barton has studied and is has in his possession a substantial amount of original documents. How can you not deem him a true historian?

 Nat, you’re right, but on page 40 it does mention the person being afflicted with dropsy and it does ask the question if it’s lawful to heal someone on the Sabbath so it’s not like the healing is being stricken completely from the record. Further, someone pointed out in an email to me that with different versions of the Jefferson Bible and a version to the Indians, Jefferson may have been tailoring the message to the audience. This work on the life and morals of Jesus may have been intended for an audience that would only be taught about the morals of Jesus. Lets also remember from the video clip that Jefferson did pay for a church for the Indians, paid for a minister to them, and wrote the Declaration of Independence which mentions God four times. Clearly he was not a deist as is commonly taught in textbooks.

Oak: Look carefully again at pages 5 and 40. Yes, they do have Jesus discussing whether healing would be legal on the sabbath. They do not, however, have Jesus healing. On page 5, Matthew 12:13 (“Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.” has been cut out. On page 40, from Luke 14:4 (“And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;”), the second sentence is excised. As such, we have Jesus presenting an argument, but not performing miracles.

I take this to mean that Jefferson believed in the genuine doctrines of Jesus and not what the religionists of the day had turned it into…namely a mass of confusion. To quote Joseph Smith on the situation at the time…

8 During
this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious
reflection and great uneasiness; but though my feelings were deep and
often poignant, still I kept myself aloof from all these parties, though
I attended their several meetings as often as occasion would permit. In
process of time my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect,
and I felt some desire to be united with them; but so great were the
confusion and strife
among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person
young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any
certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong. 9 My
mind at times was greatly excited, the cry and tumult were so great and
incessant. The Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and
Methodists, and used all the powers of both reason and sophistry to
prove their errors, or, at least, to make the people think they were in
error. On the other hand, the Baptists and Methodists in their turn were
equally zealous in endeavoring to establish their own tenets and
disprove all others.

I would think Jefferson had similar challenges believing what the pseudo-priests were preaching that contradicted each other.