One of the reasons Jesus is so often misunderstood is painfully simple: Many modern readers are missing half the conversation. The Gospels do not introduce Jesus into a blank slate. They assume a world already shaped by Torah, prophets, covenant, exile, and hope. They do not stop to explain that world, because their original audience lived inside it. We do not. And when we ignore that gap, we don’t just miss background information—we miss meaning. THE GOSPELS ARE NOT PART ONE