These three titles are from the excellent Princeton University Press series “Lives of Great Religious Books”.

In his retirement as third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson took a scalpel to his Bible and cut out all references to the super­natural, including to Jesus’ divinity. Is The Jefferson Bible (£22; Tablet price £19.80) an act of profanity or respect? Peter Manseau shows that the answer depends on what you want to hear: America is a fundamentally Christian nation founded on the moral teachings of Jesus, or America is an enlightenment project from which religion should be excised.