All quotes from the NCBCPS in this piece are found on page 101 of the curriculum, in Unit 6: Hebrew Law, Exodus Chapters 20-40. This is the unit that opens with the infamous James Madison Ten Commandments misquote mentioned in my previous pieces. The bogus Madison quote, however, isn't the only misquote in this unit.

Page 101 begins with a paragraph about the resolution of Congress calling upon Ronald Reagan to declare 1983 the "Year of the Bible," and then continues:

Several of the Ten Commandments speak of duty to God. And yet, the Mosaic Law also separated the religious and civil institutions. According to the Bible, the priests of Israel came from the Tribe of Levi, and the kings from the tribe of Judah. Still, both were subject to the Mosaic Law.

Thomas Jefferson is said to have been a leading advocate of the separation of church and state. And yet, Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that America is entitled to be an independent nation under the "Laws of Nature and of nature's God." He also wrote that "all men are created equal" and that "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Among his most famous statements is the quote, "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?

I'm not quite sure what any of these statements about Jefferson have to do with the Mosaic Law, or what point the NCBCPS is trying to make with them, and I'm not going to get into the phrases from the Declaration, except to say that some of them weren't Jefferson's words, but revisions made to Jefferson's original draft by the Continental Congress. As for the other Jefferson quote, this was covered in my previous piece, More Historical Revisionism from the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools. The misquotes I want to focus on in this piece are the two from John Adams that appear in the next paragraph on the page, which begins with the following:

Our second President, John Adams, often articulated a similar view. In a letter to Jefferson, dated December 25, 1813, he declared that "the Bible is the best Book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the libraries I have seen."...

The source cited in the curriculum's footnote for this Adams misquote, which is not only a misquote, but taken completely out of context, is William Federer's America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations.

Like the Jefferson quotes before it, this Adams quote has no relevance to the preceding statement about the Mosaic Law, a statement it is apparently supposed to support. Besides their inaccuracy, there doesn't seem to be any legitimate reason for this Adams quote or the Jefferson quotes to appear in this unit of the curriculum at all.

Getting back to the misquote itself, the general subject of Adams's December 25, 1813 letter to Jefferson was the incomplete and inadequate treatment of various philosophies and religions by certain authors, particularly Joseph Priestly. What Adams was saying was that after comparing all the religious and philosophical books available to him, he concluded that the book containing what most closely, but not entirely, matched his own philosophy was the Bible. William Federer, and in turn the NCBCPS, removed from the statement the words indicating that Adams was referring to his personal philosophy, not philosophy as a whole, and, more importantly, the part in which Adams said that there were parts of the Bible that did not match his personal philosophy.

The following is the part of Adams's letter, beginning with the sentences misquoted in the NCBCPS curriculum, and continuing with a bit more of the letter to give a sense of its tone and the context in which the statement appeared. Adams preceded this statement with other comments about the shortcomings of Priestly's work which were very similar to those in this excerpt.

...Phylosophy looks with an impartial Eye on all terrestrial religions. I have examined all, as well as my narrow Sphere, my streightened means and my busy Life would allow me; and the result is, that the Bible is the best book in the World. It contains more of my little Phylosophy than all the libraries I have seen: and such Parts of it as I cannot reconcile to my little Phylosophy I postpone for future Investigation.

Priestley ought to have given Us a Sketch of the Religion and Morals of Zoroaster of Sanchoniathon of Confucius, and all the founders of Religions before Christ, whose superiority, would from such a compari