In his favorable review of The Jefferson Bible: A Biography by Peter Manseau, Rob Boston notes with approval that Manseau “holds Jefferson to account for one of his most disturbing inconsistencies” (Church & State, November 2020, 19–20). Boston specifies this inconsistency: Thomas Jefferson seemed to admire Jesus’s morals while enjoying a comfortable life built on the backs of enslaved people.
What is neglected in this indictment is that Jesus himself unquestioningly accepted slavery, which was an approved societal institution throughout biblical times, just as it was during Jefferson’s lifetime. Surely, if it’s appropriate to accuse Jefferson of ethical hypocrisy concerning his acceptance of slavery, then the same charge should be leveled against Jesus, who was Jefferson’s ethical role model.
Because Jesus never criticized or condemned slavery and did not forbid people from owning slaves, he tacitly endorsed the practice. Moreover, in the parable of the Unfaithful Servant, Jesus explicitly authorized the cruel master-slave relationship when he recommended whipping disobedient slaves (Luke 12:42–48).
Four other parables use slavery in a teaching context. They are also notable for their extreme violence, including murder, killing, and maiming. These are the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18:23–35), Wicked Tenants (Mark 12:1–9), Wedding Banquet (Matthew 22:2–14), and Talents/Minas (Luke 19:11–27) parables, which include brutal phraseology such as “delivered him to his torturers,” “cut him in two,” “cast him into outer darkness,” and “slay them before me.”
Interspersed with this disturbing language are three primary expressions of Christian imagery: the kingdom of god, the heavenly father, and the beloved son. The central figure is Jesus himself, and the consistent theme is that those who disobey him will spend eternity in hell.
It’s important to emphasize that Jefferson included all five of Jesus’s violent slave parables in his condensed version of Jesus’s life. Obviously, then, he knew that Jesus accepted slavery without reservations. Furthermore, Jesus fully endorsed the Ten Commandments for slave owners embedded in the Law, which address property rights of slaveholders, appropriate punishment for violations, and the right of slaves to fair treatment (Exodus 21:2, 3, 4, 5–6, 7–8, 9, 10–11, 20–21, 26–27, 32).
Also relevant is the fact that two of Jesus’s prominent apostles, Paul and Peter, declared that slaves are obligated by Christian faith and fear of God to obey their masters (Ephesians 6:5–9; 1 Timothy 6:1–4). Also, Peter said that it is commendable when slaves endure unjust suffering that is willed by God (1 Peter 2:18–21).
A critical question may be posed: Was Jefferson influenced by Jesus’s approval of slavery? It’s not unreasonable to answer in the affirmative. In fact, it would be difficult to fail to realize that Jesus didn’t consider slaveholding immoral.
Considering Jefferson’s rational perspective, it’s not surprising that two of Jesus’s miracles involving slaves were omitted from his summary: the healing of the centurion’s slave (Luke 7:1–10) and the restoration of the slave-boy Malchus’s ear (Luke 22:50–51; John 18:10).
In my copy of The Jefferson Bible, published by the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1989, neither Forrest Church in his introduction nor Jaroslav Pelikan in his afterword mentioned Jefferson’s ownership of slaves. This only became an issue recently in conjunction with disputes over Confederate memorials on public property, in which slavery has been conflated with charges of treason against Confederate generals.
In conclusion, let’s be fair to Jefferson by putting the subject of slaveholding in cultural and historical context, as is routinely done with Jesus’s behavior and teachings on subjects such as family values, interpersonal violence, and everlasting punishment. We can refrain from invoking contemporary political values when judging the third president’s life circumstances.