“The Jesus rhetoric that we have assimilated through sermons, Bible study, hymns, literature, pictures, and movies imbues images of Jesus with the dominant cultural and religious values accorded to gender, race, class, and ethnicity. In other words, how we see Jesus bespeaks the values that the prevailing culture considers important. Since we have not simply one, but four very different canonical gospels—and many more, if we count those that did not make it into the official canons of the churches—scholars have to piece together often contradictory information in order to reconstruct a historical picture of Jesus’s life and work. . . . At best, we can glimpse the historical shadow of Jesus of Nazareth; but how scholars develop his picture will always depend on the lens they use.”