What is the role of religion in a secular society? How do we (should we) reconcile science and religion? These are questions that have haunted intellectuals for centuries.
As we see in one of Thomas Jefferson’s most secretive personal projects, such questions have never been easy to resolve. In 1820, he infamously carved copies of the Bible with a razor and recreated them into his own original book: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.
What is this strange book? Why was it not discovered until decades after his death? What inspired America’s third president to create such a book? What can this tell us now in modern politics?