road to the white house. -- we back live at the museum of -- bible for tonight most for the final session of tonight symposium. you're watching american history tv on c-span3. >> all weekend every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on race book. you are watching american history tv. 48 hours of programming every weekend on c-span3. forow us on twitter information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. >> in his retirement years at monticello, thomas jefferson compiled the four gospels of the

bible, extracting the moral teachings of jesus from six bibles in four different languages. he had these passages bound in a volume in 1820. the smithsonian institution acquired the little-known bible from 1885 from jefferson's great-granddaughter. american history tv visited the smithsonian paper conversation lab to learn about the project to preserve the original jefferson bible. >> i'm here to welcome you to the national museum of american history paper conservation laboratory. i want to talk about an exciting project, which is the -- the conservation of jefferson's bible. you will learn how jefferson came to create this rare book. standpoint of the museum, what is interesting to me is it captures what we do as

a museum. we collect, we preserve, and we provide access to the public. many of you are familiar with the bay conservation project the lastrred over decade, the preservation of the star-spangled banner. this is a smaller object but of in terms ofance revealing to us something about the early history of our country. i'm delighted with the support of private and public funding we were able to carry out this project. opportunity to look at the thoughts and ideas that were important to one of the founders of our country, thomas jefferson. writing table in the museum that reflects and symbolizes his role in creating

the declaration of independence. there are three things that jefferson wanted to be remembered for. second was to be an author of the declaration of independence. third was to be an author of the freedom of religion clause in the virginia state constitution. to be remembered as the third president of the united states, which i think was significant. it's those acts he wanted to have inscribed on his tombstone at the monticello. this document further reinforces the ideas and thinking behind his commitment to religious thought.

i'm going to ask. rubinstein to elaborate on what would have been the history of jefferson's bible. give you an to introduction as to what is the jefferson bible, which is going to be brief because a lot has been written about it and a lot more will be written about it. jefferson and you don't really think of as an individual who spends a lot of time thinking about religion or moral beliefs. this is a key part of his personality and his interest. he becomes engaged in this process through a depth for -- through a number of different means. part of it is the whole debate about what is the moral basis for the new republic and can we come up with one as this new

nation emerges? the other issue is church of authority, which jefferson was very uncomfortable about. recognize, funded by tax dollars, etc.. jefferson questions the role between the church and the monarchy in europe that is constantly enforcing that. and in his mind possibly corrupting christianity. he also has a number of friends encouraging him to take his own religion more seriously. these include people like benjamin rush, even john adams

in later years. defend this is to jefferson's view of creating jeffersonblicanism starts taking on this task of how do you trade a new morality for a new nation or what should and on the third way he is being attacked for his own religious beliefs. during various campaigns jefferson has roundly criticized being anti-christian and anti-church. some new england towns are telling people that if jefferson wednesday the election they need to hide their bibles.

this also becomes a political issue. so jefferson begins to think about the moral basis and corresponds with a small group of friend. this leads to a series of letters he writes to his friends, as well as earlier projects in which he is trying to get to the essence of the teachings of jesus, which he finds to be the most moral of any teaching. and this could be a basis. other enlightened men -- looking at what was written and trying to discern through this what can andeasoned and identified what is possibly superstition added to the teaching.

bibles and he starts cutting them up. and they are trying to extract the moral teachings of jesus. this is a project he is never quite satisfied with. he order some more bibles. starts to cut up the passages of the gospel of the new testament. he puts them in chronological and removes or extracts those parts that can be identified through reason and thought. out goes the merrick kohl's, out

goes the resurrection. what remains is what he thinks is the life and moral of jesus. he creates this for himself. it something he probably read when he is ready to go to bed. this is a very private document he creates himself. i think as the dr. already mentioned, you get a sense of only aboutthis not jefferson and a unique mind in american history, but also about the revolution. you are rewriting the constitution, rewriting the law.

you will rewrite the bible by doing this and find greater truth. the bible itself comes to the smithsonian in the 1890's. it was purchased by the librarian of the smithsonian for an exhibition in atlanta. since then it has been in our fascinatings a document people have come to look to over time. janice will tell you a lot more about the condition. there is something about this piece, which is almost a scrapbook.

looking at the original does something that is different than what you would expect. this is something he makes. we really wanted the bible to be notssible to the public only through digital means and reproduction, but by making it possible for people to see on exhibition. we decided it was important to undertake this very important conservation effort project. >> the first thing we did is really look. we did a survey of all the features that we thought were interesting to vulnerability. that survey turned out to be 20,000 data points, where every page we look at all the different clippings and all the

different papers. sourcebooks and he needed two copies of each. every single page are looking at here, there are multiple layers so there are 12 different types of papers, seven different heights of ink, printed ink. once we look at the levels of and we did micro testing analysis, we were taking tiny samples. areas were not intended as -- if

there was a splash of ink we would take a son -- take a sample from there. and the sample sizes we were taking were microns, tiny. a millimeter is a thousand microns. we are talking fractions of a millimeter. amazingly you can take samples that small and provide them to a conservation scientist who can come up with a wealth of information. a billing to establish that the iron goings have some vulnerability that they are not very bad. they are good to poor, but not very that.

not to the point where he needed to intervene with any kind of chemical treatment. it looked like doing chemical stabilization was not in the andm of possibility physical stabilization was the bigger issue. and that has everything to do with the way the book was found. this was found by thomas jefferson's last bookbinder. he put a ticket in the book cover so we know exactly who he is. we saw other book bindings done with the same tools. same number of stitches per gathering. same four sewing stations. unique, this binding is

it is not unique because of its binding style. we are starting to build the case for being justified. which was the case before we found it. the reason the binding was damaging is because as any scrapbook or can tell you, when you clue multiple layers of paper, where those multiple layers are its thicker. jefferson's 43 folios were thicker in the center. what the bookbinder had to do was increase the thickness at

the spine. he did that by adding little full to paper called stubbs. and they were between the folios, some inside, some outside, so the book became more now hectangular shape. is ready to bind it. time and age and oxygen and waste or have all contributed to the book becoming >> -- becoming less flexible. even a paper color is different because it was so tightly packed, it got no oxygen or light. the paper here is later because that's where the stubbs work. you can see the ribs and the crack's that goes straight up that follows where it evidence -- where it ends.

you can see how densely packed the stubbs r. -- they are. the original is still on this one. how it has damaged it straight across. the life and morals of jesus of nazareth extracted textually from the gospel in greek, latin, french, and english. without doing modification for the binding, we can open the .ook about a 30 degree angle

we can only open it about this much. binding,s to open the removed the covers intact so they can be completely reused, removing the stubbs and modifying them. and do the best quality digital scan possible. we can provide them with these magnificent high quality digital scans. here is a sample of typical pages. we have greek and latin and the french and english. he grew a little line down the center of each so he could line things up just so.

on many of them he is a time little pencil line on the top. he numbered every page in the upper left-hand corner so he could read things look -- read things across. cake --is manuscript no manuscript notations. and little abbreviations as well. a little hand abbreviation there. >> it's all the same passages? >> exact same passages so you can read it straight across. >> jefferson being jefferson,

that leads it all to one translator. he ordered a number of bibles and then ordered originally one in greek and latin. so he wanted to go to one of the more ancient languages and see how they were translated as well. two in english, two in french and two in greek and latin. >> these are the two language sourcebooks that jefferson cut from to make this jefferson bible. i was impressed with his hand skills. he does have a surgical approach. a tiny little piece of the text seems to be removed from the pages.

this is a man who has pretty good eyes and pretty good hand skills. these are some of my small delights in the meticulousness of jefferson, not only as a craftsman putting together but as a scholar. anytime he found an air in the translation he would correct it. he would have this notation on top, the english translation. there laid jesus. it looks like you made a change here. he rolled a great stone to the door. no resurrection. and this is my favorite correction.

to have three prepositions in a row was one too many. there is a tiny little claire -- little square where he cut it out. >> what jefferson does, he is not just meeting along. creates an index of the passages that he wants to extract. he creates this by beginning to produce it. >> he created that in the years whatng up to the --

historians have done is also an index which is the philosophy of jesus. he also creates an index. for many years all that was known was the two indexes. this has been known. the way historians discover the is by going back and as individual private letters became public there was a slight mention of this discussion back and forth. >> this was discovered this week. when we removed some of the stuff we found a lot.

and looking at these lovely reference books we found the watermark. this paper was made on the river at the grove at the paper mill which is now located where the -- was located. they ran the mill briefly. screens that were was made inuce this 1817. we are able to absolutely a time range that

matches the time range. >> there is one interesting subchapter to this, after the smithsonian was aimed to the bible, congress authorized a reproduction of the bible through photocopies, photography copies. every new member of congress, both house and senate. >> the house runs out very quickly so the senate continues to do this. >> right in front of you is what done in 1904.ion

if you go to any bookstore online you can order a copy of the jefferson bible. there has been the government , anding office in 1904 then the jefferson papers in the volume onso did a using photographs to create a reproduction. this is the first time it has been photographed. you will see a difference between this and the pages you are seeing there. it's the first time i think you

will have a readable volume. >> if we did nothing there would be actively more damaged. doing, there are as conservation techniques far as binding. >> part of the goal was to so we canaseline quantify. >> we have a lot of incredible wonderful things at this museum. the things that really

attracts us to it is there are some objects where you give yourself a little bit of imagination and time to think about. this volume does that as well. in the mind of a very personal and quiet individual. also a piece out of the revolution and american enlightenment. what we are hoping to do is give people a chance to really chill in that moment. and the whole point of why we are doing this is to make it accessible.

it will go on at different times. >> go to american history. si.edu for more information. >> we are back alive at 1:30 p.m. eastern for the final session of the symposium on the bible and the founding of america. you are watching american history tv on c-span3. the state of pennsylvania was founded by quaker william penn in 1682 as a sanctuary for religious freedom. many have lived and worshiped in philadelphia ever since. a visit to the arch street meeting house constructed in 1804 to learn the story society off his friends and learn about the history and practices of quakers.