A good deal of New Testament scholarship, in fact, and within that a good deal of study of Jesus, has proceeded on the assumption that the gospels cannot possibly make sense as they stand, so that some alternative hypothesis must be proposed to take the place of the view of Jesus they seem to offer. It has been assumed that we know, more or less, what Jesus’ life, ministry and self-understanding were like, and that they were unlike the picture we find in the gospels.
