his religious genius in a national vision for Israel. Accordingly, it is mostly the historians who have a firmer grasp of what Jesus was really like in his ancient world. Although religious experts may have expounded his piety well, in so doing they have abstracted Jesus away from his real, Jewish world and from his national vision.25 For Jesus, religion was a part of the nation, and it was in national terms that pious Jews expressed their allegiance to the covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David.