One Idea Ezra, Jesus and Thomas Jefferson Agreed On!

One idea lays the foundation upon which Judaism, Christianity and the United States of America are built. It acts like the light of a lighthouse to keep individuals and collectives from crashing into unseen dangers. That idea is recorded in documents written by survivors of those crashes and their words are like maps they passed down to their descendants to prevent them from sailing into the same dangerous waters. The first map is in the Torah, the second is in the Synoptic Gospels and the third is in the Declaration of Independence.

The first map was recorded by Ezra, a Jewish Scribe, around 450 BCE in Babylon. He lived there because his ancestors had been brought there after being conquered by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and then, just three years later the Persians conquered the Babylonians. Ezra gathered information from other exiles about his people’s history and nation’s laws and recorded them in the scroll that is now called the Torah. The central idea of his map is this – “all humans are created in the image of God.” This idea established equality based on a shared value of all human lives. 

The second map was spoken into existence by the words of Jesus, who was born around 6 BCE while his family was in Bethlehem being registered by official of the Roman Empire. He was raised in a poor family and trained by Joseph to be a builder. His people lived under the constant watch of Roman soldiers and lines of crosses with dead Jewish people hanging from them along major roads were reminders of could happen to them. Jesus was skilled at putting the ideas from Ezra’s map into the words his generation could understand. The central idea of his map is this – “God only wants us to do one thing; give to our neighbor as we give to ourselves.” This idea also established equality based on a shared value of all human lives.

On June 11, 1776 CE, the Continental Congress created the Committee of Five to develop a formal text of a declaration that will separate the colonies from the rule of the King of Great Britain. Thomas Jefferson was placed at the head of the committee, which consisted of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston. They were very familiar with the maps of Ezra and Jesus, as well of those of ancient and contemporary philosophers. They were also creating a new map around this central idea -- Every person must hold sacred the survival and flourishing of the lives of all others. This idea also established equality based on a shared value of all human lives.

All three maps repeat the same central idea in different ways. The first two maps, however, were exclusively linked to religions by 1776. But Jefferson and his committee were founding a new nation, not a religion, and it would be governed by institutions that had never existed before. The Committee of Five resolved the problem by using the word “sacred,” a word that has two meanings, religious and secular.

1. made holy by association to a god

2. worthy of reverent protection and celebration

The new government will be American democracy, and successful participation in it by citizens -- as the founding representatives envisioned it – rests on its citizens, in one way or another, finding ways to commit to and hold sacred the survival and flourishing of other lives.” Everything else would be subject to the democratic process.

Dr. Danielle Allen helps us understand the democratic process the Committee of Five used to produce the Declaration of Independence in her book Our Declaration (Liveright Publishers; pp. 136-137). We highly recommend it!

But, in those early days of drafting the Declaration, as the word “sacred” acquired a religious hue, the phrase “We hold these truths sacred and undeniable” gave way, as we have seen, to this one: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” This was a profound change.

To say that truths are self-evident is an epistemological claim, or a claim about how we know the things we know. How do we know that these truths are true? Because they are self-evident. Well, what does “self-evident” mean exactly? It does not mean that the instant you hear a proposition, you recognize it as true.

It means rather that if you look into the proposition, if you entertain it and reflect upon it, you will inevitably come to affirm it. All the evidence you need to judge the proposition for yourself is in the proposition itself. That’s why a proposition can be called self-evident. And to call these truths self-evident is to invite everyone into the process of judging them. This is a very democratic approach to truth.

What would life in a nation of individuals and families from different cultures who have different beliefs be like -- if they were all committed to protecting and celebrating the lives of each other? What if just a majority of the population also believed that this is a divine commandment?

All three maps stress the importance of equality and the shared value of human lives. They also all warn of the danger anything that creates inequality or devalues human lives presents to the entire nation.

Take a hard look at the maps religious and political leaders are guiding their lives by and where they want to take us. Then compare them with the central idea that has been time-tested over the last 2,500 years.

● Ezra was not surrounded by people that viewed and treated everyone else as their equals – creatures created in the image of God.

● Jesus did not live in a place where “everyone gave to their neighbor as they gave to themselves.”

● The Founding Fathers did not “hold sacred the survival and flourishing of the lives of all others” – women, slaves and Native Americans for starters. But they created a map to guide themselves and future American towards that destination.

Keep in mind that maps are used to help people that are lost figure out where they are and to guide people to their intended destination. Three of the maps were written by people at the beginning of their journeys, but now we have a fourth map. It was unknown until the late 20^th century. It reveals another type of equality, but this type is based on the 3 billion letter DNA code that produces human bodies. One of a person’s DNA code came from the male that provided the sperm and the other half from female that provided the egg – and so did their DNA and their parent’s DNA and their grandparent’s DNA, etc. If any of your ancestors had not lived, you wouldn’t be the same genetically. But even with all of that complexity, all humans are 99.9% genetically identical.

Just think how much closer we are now than they were! But just like them we have our challenges too. One of the biggest has been caused by social media. Today, new maps are being created by all kinds of unknown sources and spread across America through smartphones. They are dangerously polarizing and dividing America’s citizens, just as other maps divided people during the lives of Ezra, Jesus and Thomas Jefferson.

Now it’s our generation’s turn to create a new map to guide us through the uncharted waters we are facing. We created the TOV Center to help people engage in the discussions that will be required to do this.  

http://tovcenter.org

Welcome to the Journey!