@Bright aven

Thanks for raising the issue.

The name Jefferson's bible may be a tad misleading; as far as I know it was never/ has never been printed.

What Jefferson produced is of mild academic interest to me, as perhaps an insight into the mind of that complex man .Apart from that, .of limited use to me because I think most/all of the New Testament is myth, so we have no idea which bits, if indeed any, come directly from the alleged founder, Jesus/ Yeshua bar Yusuff, who may or may not have existed.

Some years ago, I read the following from what I must have considered a reliable source.yeah, a bit vague, so I guess it must be treated as hearsay.

THAT there are only two passages from the New Testament of which we may be confident came from Jesus. They are both very Jewish ,and exactly the kind of thing one might expect from a first century Judean rabbi: (1) The lord's prayer an( 2) The sermon on the mount.

I look forward to reading a bit if you can get the link right.

@Bright Raven

I just had a thought, a first for the new week (it's 0800 Sunday here);

I wonder if anyone has done a comparison of Jefferson's bible and the Nag Hammadi Gospel of Thomas.Scholars think these texts seem to be from as early as the first century, but no later than the mid second century ce .

In any case, my approach would be to look for similarities, not differences.

A look at wiki showed me that half of the sayings of Jesus from The Gospel of Thomas match the existing canon.

"The Coptic-language text, the second of seven contained in what modern-day scholars have designated as Codex II, is composed of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. Almost half of these sayings resemble those found in the canonical gospels, while it is speculated that the other sayings were added from Gnostic tradition.[2] Its place of origin may have been Syria, where Thomasine traditions were strong.[3]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas

I find the similarities fascinating, because they date to the very beginning of the new religion. It shows clearly that christianity did not simply appear fully formed in the first century. It gives a hint of the struggle between the many sects for dominance .

The Bart Ehrman book ' Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew" provides a lot more detail.

-Today's christian Canon was not ratified until the first Nicene council in 325ce . That the books had (mostly) been arbitrarily chosen by one man, Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria. Most importantly, the council produced the declaration of beliefs, The first Nicene Creed. This was modified as needed over following years and centuries. Also a very political document. The church was seldom if ever separated from politics from that time until modern times.

Not sure when today's legalistic (rules) and formulaic superstitious form of Catholicism especially began . Formula of prayers for penance, or the granting of indulgences, the worship of the Virgin Mary and of saints, to the point of idols and the venerations of relics ,and the wearing of holy medals .

I've thought about and spoken with with many catholics, over 60 odd years years about the difference between veneration and adoration. In practice ,imo, it's a logical fallacy 'a distinction without difference' . I welcome correction from a non apologist if my logic is flawed. By 'non apologist' I mean anyone who does not argue with the idea of the existence of god(s) as a given

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"The original Nicene Creed was first adopted on 19 June 325 at the First Council of Nicaea.[12] At that time, the text ended with the words "We believe in the Holy Spirit", after which various anathemas against Arian propositions were added.[13]

F. J. A. Hort and Adolf von Harnack argued that the Nicene creed was the local creed of Caesarea[14] (an important center of Early Christianity) recited in the council by Eusebius of Caesarea. Their case relied largely on a very specific interpretation of Eusebius' own account of the Council's proceedings.[15] More recent scholarship has not been convinced by their arguments.[16] The large number of secondary divergences from the text of the creed quoted by Eusebius make it unlikely that it was used as a starting point by those who drafted the conciliar creed.[17] Their initial text was probably a local creed from a Syro–Palestinian source into which they awkwardly inserted phrases to define the Nicene theology.[18] The Eusebian Creed may thus have been either a second or one of many nominations for the Nicene Creed.

The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia says that, soon after the Council of Nicaea, new formulae of faith were composed, most of them variations of the Nicene Symbol, to meet new phases of Arianism, of which there were at least four before the Council of Sardica (341), at which a new form was presented and inserted in its acts, although the council did not accept it.[19]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed#Original_Nicene_Creed_of_325

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"A distinction without a difference is a type of logical fallacy where an author or speaker attempts to describe a distinction between two things where no discernible difference exists. It is particularly used when a word or phrase has connotations associated with it that one party to an argument prefers to avoid."

https://www.google.com.au/search?client=opera&hs=H6f&sxsrf=ALeKk01aovW6_...