This morning on radio David Barton join Glenn to discuss his new book The Jefferson Lies: Exposing The Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson.
Glenn introduced David by explaining how he really opened his own eyes to America’s true history that so many Americans have never heard before. In his latest book, Barton exposes the lies that are taught to Americans about Thomas Jefferson, which is exactly how he opened his interview with Glenn this morning – disproving the claim that Thomas Jefferson slept with his slave, and has descendants from Sally Hemming.
“Sally Hemming didn’t happen,” David told Glenn. “First off, it's really hard to get DNA testing. To do DNA testing in a later generation you have to have a male descendant.”
Pat expanded David’s comment explaining that in November 1998, there was supposedly a DNA test proving that it he had this lineage with Sally Hemming, but that’s not what it did.
“It did nothing of the sort. In fact, they retracted the story six weeks later - nobody carried the retraction – but it was impossible to prove Jefferson did it, because he had no male descendants, and you have to have the DNA of the male descendants,” Barton explained. He later added, “It blew out 200 years of history. But nobody ran the retraction of that DNA story in 1998.”
“The story you also sometimes hear associated with this one is that it was maybe one of his relatives – one of the twenty-seven Jefferson men – that’s not even true?” Pat asked.
“Not true,” David responded. “They did find that in the fourth child there was Jeffersons DNA – not Thomas Jefferson's DNA, but that's been known for a while too. It’s been known for 200 years that Thomas's younger brother Randolph had a relationship with some of the slaves. You can point to Jefferson's younger brother, but you still can't point to Jefferson.”
Glenn next asked David about a story that he had wrong before learning more about Thomas Jefferson – Jefferson rewriting the Scripture. “I've always heard he took out what he kind of believed were the magic tricks of Jesus. He just went to the teachings of Jesus, and he called them “Jesus of Nazareth.” It was just the teachings,” Glenn said.
David explained that there was one he did in 1804 at the White House and another in 1820 – bother were called The Jefferson Bible. The one from 1804 he did after hear a sermon that told him the best way to share the Gospel with Native Americans was to make a simple abridged version. They basically took the four Gospels and cut it down into the life of Jesus and gave it to his missionary friends. It explained the Gospel and it was cheaper to print. David also explained that it did not cut out the miracles like many claim that it does.
The version from 1820 was Jefferson’s solution to morality. Jefferson read the teachings of over thirty philosophers and after doing so found that the teachings of Jesus were the best. He pulled fifty of the moral teachings of Jesus and put them together in a book he called The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth – which, David pointed out, is also filled with the miracles of Jesus.
Glenn next asked David about Jefferson’s use of the separation of church and state.
David explained that this was a quote he used that had been in existence for 250 years. Back in 71AD the state took over the church, and for the next 1,200 years it wasn’t the church taking over the state it was the state taking control. They told the church what to enforce, they decreed the doctrine, and when Henry VII wanted a divorce, and the church said no, he said he would start his own church and give himself a divorce. One of the dissenters, because of this, said that there needs to be separation of the church and commonwealth. The pastor of the pilgrims was killed for saying that Queen Elizabeth should not be head of the church. The pastor that followed, John Robinson, became one of the big inspirations for the founder’s view of church and state.
Barton continued, explaining that Thomas Jefferson received a letter from settlers in Connecticut that they were scared to death the government was going to regulate their religious expression. This is when Jefferson said that there needs to be separation of church and state and wrote a letter to the Supreme Court.
Glenn also asked David Barton about Jefferson’s connection to Islamic terrorism. Jefferson printed the first Koran.
“He had the first war on Islamic terrorism,” Barton added, explaining that Jefferson spent five years fighting Islamic terrorism, because twenty percent of the budget was going to fighting extremists.
David closed by explaining the Glenn that the reason he wrote this book was to set the record straight. So of the history of Thomas Jefferson is backwards, like separation of church and state.
“If you've never read a David Barton book, you've not read a history book,” Glenn said. “David is one of the best, if not the best historians in America. He is doing everything he can to turn history back and write it and put it back to where it was and tell history like it was, and to tell the truth, both good and bad. Thomas Jefferson is such an important figure. This is a watershed book that you need to equip yourself with and equip your family and children with, so they know about the truth about Jefferson. It is The Jefferson Lies: Exposing The Myths You've Always Believed About Jefferson.”
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