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Religions > Atheism |
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"" |
| Date: |
31 Dec 2003 11:23:19 AM |
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Founder's religious qoute 4 |
ADAMS & JEFFERSON QUESTIONED THE SOURCE OF THE
TEN COMMANDMENTS
NOVEMBER 14, 1813
Quincy Nov. 14, 1813
Among all your researches in Hebrew History and Controversy have
you ever met a book, the design of which is to prove, that the ten
Commandments, as We have them in our Catechisms and hung up in our
Churches, were not the Ten Commandments written by the Finger of God upon
tables, delivered to Moses on mount Sinai and broken by him in a passion
with Aaron for his golden calf, nor those afterwards engraved by him on
Tables of Stone; but a very different Sett of Commandments?
There is such a book by J. W. Goethens Schristen.84 Berlin
1775-1779. 1 wish to see this Book.
You will see the Subject and perceive the question in Exodus 20.
1-17. 21-28. chapter 24- 3 etc. ch. 24- 12. ch. 25. 31 ch- 31. 18. ch- 31-
19. ch. 34. 1. ch- 34. 10 etc.
I will make a Covenant with all this People. Observe that which I
command this day.
I
Thou shall not adore any other God. Therefore take heed, not to
enter into covenant, with the Inhabitants of this country; neither take for
your Sons, their daughters in marriage. They would allure thee to the
Worship of false Gods. Much less shall you in any place, erect Images.
2
The Feast of unleavened bread, shall thou keep. Seven days, shall
thou eat unleavened bread, at the time of the month Abib; to remember that
about that time, I delivered thee from Egypt.
3
Every first born of the mother is mine; the male of thine herd, be
it Stock or flock. But you shall replace the first born of an ***** with a
Sheep. The first born of your Sons shall you redeem. No Man shall appear
before me with empty hands.
4
Six days shall thou labour: the seventh day, thou shall rest from
ploughing and gathering.
5
The Feast of Weeks shall thou keep, with the firstlings of the
Wheat Harvest: and the Feast of Harvesting, at the end of the year.
6
Thrice, in every year, all male persons shall appear before the
Lord. Nobody shall invade your Country, as long as you obey this Command.
7
Thou shall not sacrifice the blood of a Sacrifice of mine, upon
leavened bread.
8
The Sacrifice of the Passover shall not remain, till the next day.
9
The Firstlings of the produce of your land, thou shall bring to the
House of the Lord.
10
Thou shall not boil the kid, while it is yet sucking.
And the Lord spake to Moses: Write these Words; as, after these
Words I made with you, and with Israel a Covenant.
I know not whether Goethens translated or abridged from the Hebrew,
or whether he used any translation Greek, Latin, or German. But he differs
in form and Words, somewhat from our Version. Exod. 34. 10. to 28. The
Sense seems to be the same. The Tables were the evidence of the covenant,
by which the Almighty attached the People of Israel to himself. By these
laws they were seperated from all other nations, and were reminded of the
principal Epochas of their History.
When and where originated our Ten Commandments? The Tables and The
Ark were lost. Authentic Copies, in few, if any hands; the ten Precepts
could not be observed, and were little remembered.
If the Book of Deuteronomy was compiled, during or after the
Babilonian Captivity, from Traditions, the Error or Amendment might come in
there.
But you must be weary, as I am at present, of Problems,
Conjectures, and paradoxes, concerning Hebrew, Grecian and Christian and
all other Antiquities; but while We believe that the finis bonorum will be
happy, We may leave learned men to this disquisitions and Criticisms.
I admire your Employment, in selecting the Philosophy and Divinity
of Jesus and seperating it from all intermixtures. If I had Eyes and
Nerves, I would go through both Testaments and mark all that I understand.
To examine the Mishna Gemara Cabbala Jezirah, Sohar Cosri and Talmud of the
Hebrews 85 would require the life of Methuselah, and after all, his 969
Years would be wasted to very little purpose. The Daemon of Hierarchical
despotism has been at Work, both with the Mishna and Gemara. In 1238 a
French Jew, made a discovery to the Pope (Gregory 9th) of the heresies of
the Talmud.86, The Pope sent 35 Articles of Error, to the Archbishops of
France, requiring them to seize the books of the Jews, and burn all that
contained any Errors. He wrote in the same terms to the Kings of France,
England Arragon, Castile Leon, Navarre and Portugal. In consequence of this
Order 20 Cartloads of Hebrew Books were burnt in France: and how many times
20 Cartloads were destroyed in the other Kingdoms? The Talmud of Babylon
and that of Jerusalem were composed from 120 to 500 Years after the
destruction of Jerusalem. If Lightfoot derived Light from what escaped from
Gregorys fury in explaining many passages in the New Testament by comparing
the Expressions of the Mishna, with those of the Apostles and Evangelists,
how many proofs of the Corruptions of Christianity might We find in the
Passages burnt?
JOHN ADAMS
84. JA misread the f in Schriften for a long s and took the title
for part of the author's name (Goethens was a possessive form already
obsolescent). One of the earliest collected editions of Goethe's Writings,
unauthorized by him, was fast issued by C. F. Himberg in 3 vols. (Berlin,
1775). A fourth volume (1779) included two tracts on religious subjects, in
part an early application of historical criticism to the Old Testament. The
derivation of JA's translation of Goethe's selection from Exodus 34: 10-27
has not been determined.
85. The principal literary expressions of the Hebrew religion. The
Talmud as the main teaching of Judaism was under attack by the Catholic
Church from the thirteenth century on and at times copies by the cartload
were burned; hence manuscripts of the Talmud are extremely rare.
86. These burnings were ordered under Pope Innocent IV, not Gregory
IX.
SOURCE: Excerpt of letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, Nov. 14,
1813. The Adams- Jefferson Letters, The Complete Correspondence Between
Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, Edited By Lester J. Cappon,
The University of North Carolina Press, (1959; 1987) pp. 395-97
**************************************************
JANUARY 24, 1814
Monticello Jan. 24, 1813
DEAR SIR
I have great need of the indulgence so kindly extended to me in
your favor of Dec. 25. of permitting me to answer your friendly letters at
my leisure. My frequent and long absences from home are a first cause of
tardiness in my correspondence, and a Id. the accumulation of business
during my absence, some of which imperiously commands first attentions. I
am now in arrear to you for your letters of Nov. 12. 14- 16. Dec. 3. 19.
25.
I, have made some enquiry about Taylor's book, 24 and I learn from
a neighbor of his that it has been understood for some time that he was
writing a political work. We had not heard of it's publication, nor has it
been announced in any of our papers. But this must be the book of 630.
pages which you have recieved; and certainly neither the style nor the
stuff of the author of Arator can ever be mistaken. In the latter work, as
you observe, there are some good things, but so involved in quaint, in
farfetched, affected, mystical conciepts, and flimsy theories, that who can
take the trouble of getting at them?
You ask me if I have ever seen the work of J. W. Goethens
Schristen? Never. Nor did the question ever occur to me before Where get we
the ten commandments? The book indeed gives them to us verbatim. But where
did it get them? For itself tells us they were written by the finger of god
on tables of stone, which were destroyed by Moses: it specifies those on
the Id. set of tables in different form and substance, but still without
saying how the others were recovered. But the whole history of these books
is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry
into it: and such tricks have been plaid with their text, and with the
texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that
cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New
testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from
an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very
inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out
diamonds from dunghills. The matter of the first was such as would be
preserved in the memory of the hearers, and handed on by tradition for a
long time; the latter such stuff as might be gathered up, for imbedding it,
any where, and at any time.
24. Taylor, An Inquiry into the Government of the United States.
SOURCE: Excerpt of letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, Jan, 24,
1814. The Adams- Jefferson Letters, The Complete Correspondence Between
Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, Edited By Lester J. Cappon,
The University of North Carolina Press, (1959; 1987) p.. 421
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Founder's religious qoute 5 |
01 Jan 2004 10:30:13 AM |
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wrote:
THE principle, that civil rulers have nothing to do with religion in
their official capacities, is as much interwoven in the Baptist plan, as
Phydias's name was in the shield. The legitimate powers- of government
extend only to punish men for working ill to their neighbors, and no way
affect the rights of conscience. The nation of Israel received their civil
and religious laws from Jehovah, which were binding on them, and no other;
and with the extirpation of that nation, were abolished. For a Christian
commonwealth to be established upon the same claim, is very presumptuous,
without they have the same charter from Heaven. Because the nation of
Israel had a divine grant of the land of Canaan, and orders to enslave the
heathen, some suppose Christians have an equal right to take away the land
of the Indians, and make slaves of the negroes. Wretched religion, that
pleads for cruelty and injustice. In this point of view, the Pope offered
England to the king of Spain, provided he would conquer it; after England
became Protestant, and in the same view of things, on May 4, 1493, the year
after America was discovered, he proposed to give away the heathen lands to
his Christian subjects. If Christian nations, were nations of Christians,
these things would not be so: The very tendency of religious establishments
by human law, is to make some hypocrites, and the rest fools; they are
calculated to destroy those very virtues that religion is designed to build
up ; to encourage fraud and violence over the earth. It is error alone,
that stands in need of government to support it ; truth can and will do
better without : so ignorance calls in anger in a debate, good sense scorns
it. Religion, in its purest ages,,made .its way in the world, not only
without the aid of the law, but against all the laws of haughty monarchs,
and all the maxims of the schools. The pretended friendship of legal
protection, and learned assistance, proves often in the end like the
friendship of Joab to Amass.
Source: "The Virginia Chronicle", by John Leland, 1790. The Writings of
John Leland, Edited by L.F. Greene, Arno Press & The New York Times N Y
(1969) pp.91-124) Originally published as: The Writings Of The Late Elder
John Leland Including Some Events In His Life, Written By Himself, With
Additional Sketches &c. By Miss L.F. Greene, Lanesboro, Mass. New York
Printed By G.W. Wood, 29 Gold Street, 1845.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Founder's religious qoute 6 |
02 Jan 2004 11:29:02 AM |
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ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT AT THIS POINT IN TIME
Excerpt from July 4th Oration by John Leland, July 5, 1802.
[emphasis added]
.. . . Disdain mean suspicion, but cherish manly jealousy; be always jealous
of your liberty, your rights. Nip the first bud of intrusion on your
constitution. Be not devoted to men; let measures be your object, and
estimate men according to the measures they pursue. Never promote men who
seek after a state-established religion; it is spiritual tyranny--the worst
of despotism. It is turnpiking the way to heaven by human law, in order to
establish ministerial gates to collect toll. It converts religion into a
principle of state policy, and the gospel into merchandise. Heaven forbids
the bans of marriage between church and state; their embraces therefore,
must be unlawful. Guard against those men who make a great noise about
religion, in choosing representatives. It is electioneering. If they knew
the nature and worth of religion, they would not debauch it to such
shameful purposes. If pure religion is the criterion to denominate
candidates, those who make a noise about it must be rejected; for their
wrangle about it, proves that they are void of it. Let honesty, talents and
quick despatch, characterise the men of your choice. Such men will have a
sympathy with their constituents, and will be willing to come to the light,
that their deeds may be examined. . . .
Source of Information:
Excerpt from "July 4th Oration by John Leland, July 5, 1802". The Writings
of John Leland, Edited by L.F. Greene, Arno Press & The New York Times New
York (1969) pp.260-270) Originally published as: The Writings Of The Late
Elder John Leland Including Some Events In His Life, Written By Himself,
With Additional Sketches &c. By Miss L.F. Greene, Lanesboro, Mass. Printed
By G.W. Wood, 29 Gold Street, New York 1845.
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