In Front | Ralph Waldo Emerson

A good example of the subjectivist approach to the Bible is that of the American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. He suggested not only selecting choice passages from the Bible, but adding to it passages from outside the traditional biblical canon. 

Make your own Bible. Select & Collect all those words & sentences that in all your reading have been to you like the blast of trumpet out of Shakespeare, Seneca, Moses, John, & Paul. 

Though there is no surviving “Emerson Bible” to parallel Jefferson’s, this note from Emerson’s journal introduces us to his approach to the Bible, and also to his particular view of what a Bible is. He viewed the Jewish and Christian Bible as one of many sacred books with moral value from around the world. He went so far as to assign the term “Bible” his own personal definition:

A Bible is a collection of formulas to express the inevitable moral facts. It is the record of the experience and aspiration of the wisest and most religious minds, of the saints of each nation. Each nation has its own, and of course it is . . . preferred to every foreign bible, because it is identified with the aspirations and affection of the people and gathers with time a miraculous repute.

In his view, the Jewish and Christian Bible was one such collection of formulas, and not necessarily greater than or inferior to other alternatives. In spite of this, Emerson viewed the biblical figure Jesus with special regard. He viewed him as a standard of moral and prophetic understanding:

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul . . . Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man . . . He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, “I am divine” . . . Thus is he, as I think, the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of man.

Sources: Ralph Waldo Emerson and William H. Gilman, The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. 5, 1960, p. 186; Ralph Waldo Emerson,  Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Volume 10, 2012, p. 155.

Emerson’s Divinity School Address: Divinity School Address. Accessed April 24, 2017. http://www.emersoncentral.com/divaddr.htm.