about Jesus.14 Either we ‘know’ ahead of time that Jesus is ‘divine’ (it is usually assumed that the force of this predicate is already understood), in which case the writing of the history of his life ‘must’ reflect this fact: the portrait then becomes an icon, useful for devotion but probably unlike the original subject. Alternatively, we commit ourselves to ruthless historical investigation, and expect, whether gladly or fearfully, that we will thereby ‘disprove’, or at least seriously undermine,