David Barton: The Declaration Of Independence And Bill Of Rights Came Directly Out Of The Bible | Right Wing Watch

Glenn Beck brought right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton onto his television program last week so that he could deliver another one of his "history" lessons to Beck's audience about how the Founding Fathers took all of the rights guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights straight out of the Bible, specifically Genesis 1-8.

As Barton explained, the purpose of the Declaration was to declare that there was a God, that God created inalienable rights, and that government exists to protect these rights. As such, there were some two dozen rights listed in the Declaration, which eventually were codified into the Bill of Rights, and all of which were taken directly from the Bible.

"They held that all of those came out of Genesis 1-8," Barton said. "That's what they looked to. Genesis 1-8, they went through and said, 'Here's the two dozen rights we see and that's why governments exist.' So this is the God factor and that's what made of different from the beginning."

Barton went on to declare that there is no such thing as separation of church and state or government neutrality toward religion because the Declaration declares unanimously, on behalf of every level of government, that God exists.

WTF did I just read?

As one comment notes (from the Throckmorton response to follow), and it is a point I have made in the past, ",,,Barton, Beck and many others seem to conflate the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. The former is in no way a legal document and it differs substantially from the latter. Both were written with entirely different goals and in entirely different circumstances."

Warren Throckmorton in response to Barton makes this interesting point:

As usual Barton isn’t specific about which founders said what. I have pointed out several times on this blog that Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, did not point to the Bible as a source for the document.  Below is a segment from a previous post which cites Jefferson’s description of the influences on him as he wrote the Declaration:

When Jefferson wrote about the Declaration, he did not credit the Bible or Christianity.

First, to Henry Lee on May 8, 1825, Jefferson wrote:

But with respect to our rights, and the acts of the British government contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the water. All American whigs thought alike on these subjects. When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles or new arguments never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before: but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c. The historical documents which you mention as in your possession ought all to be found, and I am persuaded you will find to be corroborative of the facts and principles advanced in that Declaration.

Who wrote the “elementary books of public right?” Moses? The Apostle Paul? No, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney contributed to the “harmonizing sentiments of the day.” A case could be made that some of that harmonizing sentiment derived from religious sources with religious references, but Jefferson did not mention them or appeal to them as primary influences.

In 1823, Jefferson told James Madison (referring to Lee’s theories about the source of the Declaration):

Richard Henry Lee charged it as copied from Locke’s treatise on government. Otis’s pamphlet I never saw, and whether I had gathered my ideas from reading or reflection, I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it. I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether, and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before.

According to Jefferson (and in contrast to what the authors of the Founders’ Bible want you to believe), he did not turn to the Bible when writing the Declaration of Independence. Christian historians Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden got it right when they wrote in 1989:

Here then is the “historical error”: It is historically inaccurate and anachronistic to confuse, and virtually to equate, the thinking of the Declaration of Independence with a biblical world view, or with Reformation thinking, or with the idea of a Christian nation. (p. 130).

I will add that I can’t see how the Bill of Rights can be found in Genesis 1-8.

David Barton: The Declaration Of Independence And Bill Of Rights Came Directly Out Of The Bible | Right Wing Watch