The key insight right now, I think, is that Christian tradition didn’t know how to read the Bible. It’s words, its terms, its context, were unknown to them. Often they just guessed.

With modern scholarship, after the Dead Sea Scrolls, which provide crucial clues to what key terms mean, we can begin again. But the key message of Jesus—”love one another”—was clear all along.

And the Christian failure to do so will be remembered.