I edited a copy of Jefferson’s Bible to remove the words "Jews" (replaced with "the people"), "Israel" and "Judaea" (replaced both with "the land"), and "Jerusalem" (replaced with "Great City"). I’m still thinking about replacing other notable cities in Israel with non-descript synonyms.
The reason for that is my recent idea that Christianity’s doctrinal obsessions over Judaism, Israel and Jerusalem are manifested both in anti-Judaic/anti-Semitic and Christian Zionist/apocalyptic extremes, both of which de-humanize the Jews into tools for Christian eschatological machinations; the same treatment is afforded regularly to Israel and its cities, especially Jerusalem.
In fact, what helped me come to this conclusion is a documentary on Jerusalem syndrome which I watched a long while back. The syndrome, which has been documented by psychologists as happening primarily among both adherents to, and former subscribers to, Christianity in its more established forms and denominations, is an affliction which manifests itself in a number of ways ranging from tripping out (as in coming to the idea that you are a reincarnation of King David) to falling out (as in running around in the street, claiming that you are a prophet for "God’s imminent coming", or trying to blow up the al-Aqsa Mosque in order to hasten the aforementioned eschatological event).
Perhaps, by removing all explicit references to landforms and extant human settlements in Israel and nearby areas, Jefferson’s Bible can be further removed from the precipice of absent-minded bigotry and inanity which has been occupied by various translations and versions of the New Testament for over a thousand and a half years or more.
My edit of Jefferson’s Bible is designed, in my opinion, to resemble the Book of Job – sans the supernatural content – in its non-localization; basically, the less that people know of the whereabouts of the land of Uz, the better chance that Christians won’t desire a Crusade to gain it back for Christendom. The same approach should be used for explaining Jesus’ concepts on ethics – that he was simply a guy who lived in such-and-such place who demanded a reform of the ethical system of his culture and pissed off the cultural leaders enough that he was accused of apostasy and was executed. No depiction as a prophet, no virgin birth, no miracles, no blaming a specific extant people and religion for the problems in society, no mentioning of a specific target people. Just the facts and no more.
Furthermore, if neither the Jews nor any part of Israel are mentioned in the New Testament, then perhaps it will finally exempt Judaism’s subscribers and associates from those special "tender mercies" and "caring love" which Christians and ex-Christians, for millenia, have desired to shower upon the Jews in particular (and, with just as much fervor, LGBT people). The Jews won’t be that group of people upon which so much is blamed (issues in Southwest Asia, blood libel, world domination, being too smart – for which I had fallen a few years ago and have yet to shake off – and so on).
It doesn’t mean that I will convert to a customized Christianity or identity as a Christian; too many hangups from years past, so I can never fathom returning to it. I COULD convert to Reform Judaism or anything left of that (the more conservative Judaic denominations tend to wax more authoritarian and chaotic against their members and competing sects), but I fancy the more ancient (semi-)polytheistic – or even (semi-)polyDEistic – folk belief systems, at least more for their ability to not rule out other fellow deities with as much fervor as Abrahamic monotheism.
Of course, if I were to identify with a religion now, I’d say Buddhism mixed with a fondness for Pagan and Neopagan traditions.
But if I’ve only made one contribution to the world for which I can have no regrets, it is to help de-supernaturalize and somewhat de-bigotize the scriptural basis of a religion which holds sway over a sixth of the world’s population.
