Four distinct tellings of Jesus, twenty-three books that follow the news outward, fifteen ideas Christians keep returning to, and the passages a serious reader should not skip.
01 The whole collection
The printed order begins with Jesus and moves forward. The order of writing begins with letters sent to small, argumentative churches.
The New Testament is twenty-seven books, not one continuous book. Four Gospels tell the life, death, and claimed resurrection of Jesus. Acts follows the movement that gathers around him from Jerusalem toward Rome. Twenty-one letters teach, correct, argue with, and encourage early churches. Revelation closes with a vision in which violent empire falls, the dead are judged, and God makes the world new.
The shelf order hides an important fact. Paul’s letters are the earliest Christian writings that survive, composed before any Gospel in the collection. A person reading straight through therefore meets the story before meeting the letters that were already circulating when the story was written down. That is useful for reading, but not chronology.
All four Gospels begin from the same center. Jesus is a Jew in Roman-ruled Galilee who announces the kingdom of God, gathers disciples, teaches in parables, heals, argues about Torah, goes to Jerusalem, and is crucified under Pontius Pilate. His followers then say that God raised him from the dead. The agreement matters. So do the differences. Each Gospel selects, orders, and interprets the life for a different community and a different theological purpose.
The shortest and probably earliest
Jesus arrives as an adult, announces God’s kingdom, acts with frightening authority, and repeatedly predicts suffering that his disciples cannot accept. The oldest recoverable ending stops at 16.8: the tomb is empty, a messenger says Jesus has risen, and the women flee in fear before any risen appearance is narrated.
The teacher and Jewish Messiah
Matthew gives Jesus a genealogy through David and Abraham, a birth under Herod, and five large blocks of teaching. Jesus fulfills Israel’s scriptures, deepens the law rather than discarding it, forms a church, and ends by sending disciples to every nation.
The first of two volumes
Luke lingers over women, the poor, outsiders, meals, prayer, and the work of the Spirit. Its Jesus begins with good news for the poor and ends by opening the scriptures to his followers. Acts is volume two, carrying the same story through Peter, Paul, and the gentile mission.
The Word made flesh
John begins before creation, calls Jesus the divine Word, and replaces short parables with signs and long conversations. Its chronology and voice differ sharply from the other three. Jesus speaks openly about who he is, washes his disciples’ feet, and makes self-giving love the mark of belonging to him.
Acts begins with the risen Jesus leaving and the Holy Spirit arriving at Pentecost. A frightened group becomes a public movement. Its members share food and money, preach in Jerusalem, meet resistance, and discover that gentiles can receive the same Spirit without first becoming Jews. Peter opens the door. Paul carries the argument across the eastern Mediterranean. The last scene leaves him in Rome, under guard but preaching freely. The story reaches the imperial center without giving the reader Paul’s death.
The letters show what that expansion cost. Paul writes to communities divided by class, sex, ethnicity, food, money, spiritual gifts, leadership, and the timing of Jesus’ return. He insists that Christ’s death and resurrection have created a new people, received by grace rather than earned, then spends page after page explaining how that gift must change bodies, households, worship, and public conduct. His churches are not stained-glass calm. They sue one another, humiliate poor members at supper, dispute circumcision, tolerate exploitation, compete over ecstatic gifts, and ask whether their dead have missed the resurrection.
Hebrews reads Jesus through priesthood, sacrifice, and covenant. James demands a faith that feeds and clothes people rather than merely agreeing with doctrines. First Peter addresses communities learning to live as outsiders. First John makes love the test of knowing God. The later letters bearing Paul’s name describe more settled offices and households than his undisputed letters do. Second Peter confronts the embarrassing question of why the promised return has not happened.
Revelation is not a timetable written in code for one modern generation. It is an apocalypse, a disclosure given through symbols to seven churches living under Roman power. A slaughtered Lamb defeats a dragon. Beasts parody political and religious rule. Babylon, pictured as a rich city drunk on blood, falls. The book’s violence is severe, but its resistance is primarily witness and endurance rather than taking Rome’s weapons. It ends beyond escape from earth: a holy city descends, creation is renewed, death is gone, and God dwells with humanity.
Read in order, the collection moves from one Jewish teacher in Galilee to communities scattered through an empire, then to a remade creation. Read in historical order, it moves from urgent letters about a risen Lord to four increasingly developed tellings of his life and then to later arguments over authority, delay, and endurance. Christians read both orders at once. The result is not one voice but a small library held together by the claim that the crucified Jesus is alive and that his life has changed what God, neighbor, body, church, death, and the future mean.
02 History and transmission
Jesus of Nazareth existed, taught within first-century Judaism, gathered followers, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Paul’s seven undisputed letters come from the 50s CE and are the earliest surviving Christian texts. They already treat Jesus’ death and resurrection as the movement’s center, preserve older formulas Paul says he received, and show communities spread far beyond Judea.
The Gospels were formally anonymous. Their familiar names belong to early church tradition, not signatures inside the works. Most scholars place Mark around or after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70, Matthew and Luke later in the first century, and John last, though every boundary is argued. Luke and Acts form a literary pair. Seven letters are widely accepted as Paul’s; six remain disputed, and Hebrews names no author.
No original manuscript survives. What does survive is unusually abundant but uneven: more than 5,700 catalogued Greek manuscripts, most of them medieval and most containing only part of the New Testament. Papyrus 52 preserves a few lines of John and is commonly dated between 125 and 175. Papyrus 46, around 200, preserves a large early collection of Paul’s letters and Hebrews.
Historical method can compare sources, locate Jesus within Jewish and Roman history, and judge some sayings or events more likely than others. It cannot rerun Easter morning. The resurrection is an early and public Christian claim with witnesses named in Paul. Whether God raised Jesus is a theological judgment, not a result a manuscript date or archaeological test can compel.
The twenty-seven-book canon also grew rather than arriving as a bound set. Four Gospels and collections of Paul’s letters circulated by the second century. Churches disagreed at the edges over Hebrews, James, Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, and other works. Athanasius’ Easter letter of 367 gives the first surviving list that matches today’s twenty-seven exactly. Agreement continued to settle region by region.
Copyists introduced thousands of differences, most too small to affect English meaning. A few are large enough to see without Greek. The earliest manuscripts lack Mark 16.9-20 and John 7.53-8.11, the woman caught in adultery. The Lord’s Prayer doxology and the Trinitarian wording in 1 John 5.7 entered later parts of the manuscript tradition. Modern critical editions leave those seams visible.
03 Expand the ideas
Each entry gives the claim, the practice it produces, and the exact words in the public-domain American Standard Version of 1901.
The first public words Mark gives Jesus are not a theory about private spirituality. God’s reign has drawn near, so people must turn and trust the news. The kingdom is present in healings, forgiveness, meals with outsiders, and release from hostile powers. It is also future, something disciples still ask to come. Repentance means more than regret. The Greek metanoia points to a changed mind and direction, a life reorganized because another authority has become real.
In practice Christian worship begins again and again with confession, pardon, and the prayer that God’s kingdom come. Revival preaching, monastic self-examination, the church calendar, and ordinary habits of apology all assume that conversion is not one past event. The kingdom tests allegiance in public life too: whose will is being done, and who benefits when it is?
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel.
Mark 1:15
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
Matthew 6:10
The books do not all explain Jesus in the same vocabulary, but they refuse to leave him as one teacher among others. Messiah names Israel’s anointed king. Son of God can carry royal, intimate, and divine force. Lord is the title early Christians use in worship and in rereading Israel’s scriptures. John goes furthest in one sentence: the eternal Word through whom creation came to be became flesh. Christian doctrine later built technical language around these claims because the New Testament already places Jesus inside devotion to the one God.
In practice Christians confess Jesus in baptism, creeds, hymns, prayer, and the sign of the cross. Catholic, Orthodox, and most Protestant churches share the Nicene claim that he is fully divine and fully human. They disagree over how authority is exercised in his name, but a church that treats Jesus as merely an admired moralist has left the collection’s center.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us …
John 1:1, 14
that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:10-11
Paul says he passed on what he had first received: Christ died for sins, was buried, and was raised. That compact confession predates his letter. The New Testament gives the cross several meanings rather than one theory: sacrifice, victory over hostile powers, ransom, reconciliation, faithful obedience, exposure of violent rule, and the love of God carried to death. Resurrection is not simply that Jesus’ influence survived. The claim is that God acted on the dead body and began the future resurrection early in one person.
In practice Sunday worship gathers around Easter. Lent, Holy Week, fasting, the cross, Eucharist, funerals, and baptism all rehearse death and rising. Christians disagree sharply over atonement theories and over how literally to describe the resurrection body. They agree that removing either Good Friday or Easter collapses the message the apostles preached.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures;
1 Corinthians 15:3-4
that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:4
Paul opposes boasting because reconciliation with God is a gift, not a wage paid to the morally impressive. James opposes empty assent because a faith that leaves a hungry person unfed is dead. The old Western argument over faith and works became explosive because both claims are in the same collection. The strongest shared reading keeps their order: grace gives what cannot be earned, faith receives it, and the received life becomes visible in love, justice, and endurance.
In practice Protestants emphasize justification by faith apart from works. Catholic and Orthodox traditions emphasize grace that heals and enables cooperation. Joint statements have recovered substantial agreement: good works do not purchase grace, and grace does not make obedience optional. The daily test is whether assurance produces gratitude and service or becomes permission to remain unchanged.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
for by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, …
Ephesians 2:8-10
Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.
James 2:17
Jesus joins two commands from Torah: love God with the whole person, and love the neighbor as oneself. Neither cancels the other. Devotion that ignores the neighbor is false, while care for the neighbor belongs inside a larger love of God. John’s Gospel sharpens the measure. Disciples love one another as Jesus loved them, which means taking the lower place, washing feet, telling the truth, and accepting cost rather than treating warmth of feeling as the whole command.
In practice The two commands organize examination of conscience, preaching, charity, pastoral care, family ethics, and arguments about public justice. Christians still disagree about what love requires in war, punishment, wealth, sexuality, and political power. The disagreement is not permission to replace love with correctness. The text makes love the evidence by which discipleship becomes visible.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. … Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Matthew 22:37-40
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, … By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, …
John 13:34-35
Jesus does not let love stop at the circle that returns it. He commands prayer for persecutors and grounds it in God’s indiscriminate generosity: sun and rain reach the just and unjust together. Forgiveness receives equally severe treatment. The Lord’s Prayer asks for it in the measure one extends it. This is not a demand to call abuse harmless, remain in danger, or remove every civil consequence. It is a refusal to let vengeance become the final relation to the offender.
In practice Christians confess resentment, exchange peace before communion, seek reconciliation, practice restorative justice, and pray by name for people they oppose. Pacifist churches read enemy-love as a ban on killing. Just-war traditions argue that force can restrain harm without hatred. Both readings stand under words that make contempt and revenge spiritually dangerous.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
but I say unto you, love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven: …
Matthew 5:44-45
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 6:14-15
Luke announces this emphasis before Jesus preaches his first sermon. Good news goes to the poor, release to captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the bruised. Jesus eats with people respectable religion avoids. Women become disciples and patrons. Children are welcomed, foreigners become examples of faith, and the least are identified with Christ himself. The New Testament does not romanticize poverty, and it does not let a church treat poverty as someone else’s private failure.
In practice Almsgiving, food pantries, hospitals, schools, shelters, mutual aid, debt relief, and advocacy all grow from this pressure. Traditions divide over whether the church should concentrate on personal mercy, structural change, or both. They cannot remove the poor from the test without removing people Jesus repeatedly puts in the middle.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, …
Luke 4:18
Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, [even] these least, ye did it unto me.
Matthew 25:40
The prayer Jesus teaches is brief enough to memorize and wide enough to inhabit for a lifetime. It begins in relationship, but the pronoun is plural: our Father, our bread, our debts. God’s name, kingdom, and will come before private requests. Bodily need, forgiveness, temptation, and evil all belong. Other New Testament prayers add lament, thanksgiving, intercession, silence, groaning, and bold requests. Prayer is neither information God lacked nor a technique for controlling outcomes.
In practice The Lord’s Prayer is spoken at Eucharist, in daily offices, at bedsides, in families, and alone. Orthodox prayer ropes, Catholic rosaries, Protestant extemporaneous prayer, contemplative silence, and sung intercession train attention in different ways. The common discipline is to bring the actual need before God and let the request be reordered by thanksgiving, forgiveness, and “thy will be done.”
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread.
Matthew 6:9-11
In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Philippians 4:6-7
Baptism is the New Testament’s ordinary threshold into Christian life. It is performed in the triune name, linked with forgiveness and the Spirit, and interpreted by Paul as burial and rising with Christ. It is personal without being private: the baptized person enters a body in which inherited divisions lose their power to decide who belongs. The texts do not give one later sacramental theory or one complete ritual manual.
In practice Nearly every Christian tradition baptizes with water in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Churches dispute infant or believer’s baptism, immersion or pouring, and whether baptism causes regeneration or publicly signs it. They agree that baptism is not a decorative graduation. It gives a life a name, a community, and a pattern of dying to an old rule and walking differently.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:
Matthew 28:19
Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism unto death: …
Romans 6:3-4
Paul preserves the meal tradition before the Gospels were written. Jesus identifies bread with his body and the cup with the new covenant in his blood, then tells the community to repeat the act. Remembering is not solitary recollection. The one bread makes many people one body, and Paul says a supper that humiliates hungry members contradicts what it celebrates. The table joins Christ’s death, present communion, social equality, and the hope of his return.
In practice Catholics call it the Mass, Orthodox Christians the Divine Liturgy, and Protestants Communion or the Lord’s Supper. They disagree over Christ’s manner of presence, sacrifice, who may preside, and who may receive. Yet bread and cup remain the repeated center of Christian worship because Jesus’ gift is received, shared, and made a demand on the table’s social life.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me. … For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come.
1 Corinthians 11:24-26
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?
1 Corinthians 10:16-17
Acts presents the Spirit as the power that turns witnesses outward and crosses the boundaries they expected to keep. Paul describes the Spirit as God’s presence within persons and the church, the one who gives different gifts for a common good, helps prayer, assures adoption, and raises mortal bodies. Extraordinary gifts matter, but the lasting evidence is fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
In practice Christians invoke the Spirit in baptism, ordination, Eucharist, preaching, discernment, healing, and private prayer. Pentecostal and charismatic churches expect tongues, prophecy, and healing more openly than many others. The New Testament’s own test is communal benefit and Christlike fruit. Intensity alone does not certify a spirit.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses …
Acts 1:8
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; …
Galatians 5:22-23
Paul reaches for a body because a crowd and a hierarchy both fail to say enough. Members differ, but difference is not independence. The eye needs the hand, the head needs the feet, and the parts treated as weaker receive special honor. The Spirit creates unity without making every gift identical. Church in the New Testament can mean a household gathering, a city’s assemblies, or Christ’s people as a whole. It is an organism before it is a building.
In practice Christians gather for teaching, prayer, song, bread and cup, care for need, discipline, and mission. Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions disagree over bishops, apostolic succession, papal authority, congregational rule, and the church’s boundaries. None can make solitary Christianity the norm. Gifts are given to build other people, and membership makes their wounds harder to call irrelevant.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
For as the body is one, and hath many members … so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, …
1 Corinthians 12:12-13
Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.
1 Corinthians 12:27
The New Testament does not divide a spiritual interior from an ethically neutral body. Paul calls bodies living sacrifices and asks communities to let their minds be renewed. Jesus connects speech with the heart, wealth with allegiance, and leadership with service. The letters move without apology from resurrection to budgets, meals, sexual conduct, labor, anger, hospitality, and truthfulness. Holiness means belonging to God in the ordinary places where desire and power become action.
In practice Examination of conscience, fasting, simplicity, sexual discipline, honest work, generosity, Sabbath habits, confession, and accountability give the claim a body. Churches dispute many applications, especially around gender, sexuality, property, and political action. A rule can become controlling or hypocritical. The correction is not a faith with no embodied demands, but renewal that produces recognizable good.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, …
Romans 12:1-2
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.
James 1:22
Matthew ends with a commission to make disciples of all nations; Acts maps the movement from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria toward the ends of the earth. Mission includes speech, baptism, teaching, reconciliation, shared life, and care that makes the message credible. It is not a warrant for a nation to baptize its expansion. The messenger represents a crucified Lord and therefore cannot make domination the proof of truth without contradicting the message.
In practice Christians preach, translate scripture, plant churches, cross cultures, serve locally, and explain the hope they hold. The history includes hospitals, literacy, and costly solidarity. It also includes forced conversion, colonial power, and contempt for other traditions. Repentant mission listens, refuses coercion, distinguishes witness from conquest, and remembers that the person across the table is never raw material for a victory statistic.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations … teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, …
Matthew 28:19-20
We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: …
2 Corinthians 5:20
The New Testament’s final hope is larger than an immortal soul going elsewhere. Paul expects the dead to be raised and mortal bodies changed. The Gospels expect judgment in which hidden loyalties and treatment of the vulnerable come to light. Revelation brings a city down from heaven rather than carrying creation away from earth. Death, mourning, and pain end because God dwells with humanity and makes all things new.
In practice The creed ends with resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Christian funerals grieve without pretending death is harmless. Care for bodies, creation, justice, and unfinished work becomes meaningful because God’s future repairs rather than discards the world. Traditions dispute the millennium, rapture, intermediate state, and sequence of final events. The shared hope is Christ’s return, judgment, resurrection, and creation healed.
The New Testament keeps saying itASV, 1901
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1 Corinthians 15:52-53
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: … and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: … Behold, I make all things new.
Revelation 21:1, 4-5
04 Do not skip
The New Testament has been used to free people, frighten people, protect people, and control people. Its difficult passages need more than a friendly verse placed over them.
English “hell” can translate Gehenna, Hades, or Tartarus, and Revelation adds a lake of fire. Jesus warns of destruction in Gehenna and Matthew 25.46 places “eternal punishment” beside “eternal life.” The strongest traditional reading is conscious punishment without end. Other Christians argue for final destruction or eventual restoration, drawing on different images and on the range of the Greek words. No honest summary can say the warnings are merely metaphor and therefore harmless. It also cannot pretend the text supplies one diagram of the afterlife.
Household codes tell enslaved people to obey masters. First Peter even includes harsh masters. Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon and asks that he be received as a beloved brother, but never plainly commands manumission or the end of the institution. Galatians 3.28 and the shared body gave abolitionists a powerful internal argument; defenders of slavery quoted the direct commands. The equality claim presses against slavery, but it does not make the New Testament an abolitionist document before abolitionism existed.
Women fund Jesus’ work, remain at the cross, discover the empty tomb, host churches, prophesy, teach Apollos, and are named by Paul as coworkers and apostles. First Timothy 2.12 forbids a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. First Corinthians 14.34-35 tells women to be silent, even though chapter 11 assumes women pray and prophesy. The Pastoral Letters’ authorship is disputed, and some manuscripts move the Corinthian silence verses to a different location, but the restrictions are not imaginary. Churches still divide over whether they address local disorder or establish permanent offices by sex.
Romans 1.26-27 describes same-sex acts inside an argument about idolatry and disordered desire. First Corinthians 6.9 uses two contested terms, malakoi and arsenokoitai. The traditional reading treats these passages as prohibiting same-sex sexual relations. Affirming readings stress exploitation, status, excess, and the absence of the modern category of an equal, enduring same-sex marriage. It is too easy to claim the texts say nothing about same-sex acts. It is also too easy to move from ancient acts and social categories to every modern relationship without making an interpretive argument.
Jesus, Paul, and the first disciples were Jews, and the Gospel writers worked inside a movement born from Jewish life. John’s repeated phrase “the Jews,” Matthew’s crowd accepting bloodguilt, and First Thessalonians 2.14-16 were later read as verdicts on an entire people and helped feed contempt, expulsion, and violence. Their first settings involve bitter disputes within and around Jewish communities under Roman rule. That context matters, but later harm cannot be explained away as a misunderstanding only. Romans 9-11 warns gentile Christians not to boast over Israel and insists that God has not rejected his people.
Jesus says “this generation” will not pass before apocalyptic events occur. Paul speaks of “we that are alive” at the Lord’s coming. Revelation says the time is near, while Second Peter answers scoffers asking where the promise has gone. Christians have read some sayings as fulfilled in Jerusalem’s destruction, the transfiguration, or the resurrection, and others as describing a future still open. The New Testament itself shows expectation being reinterpreted as time passes. Calling the delay no problem ignores a question one of its own letters had to answer.
Matthew and Luke give different genealogies and birth stories. Their accounts of Judas’ death do not line up neatly. Mark places the women at an empty tomb but narrates no risen appearance in its earliest ending; the other Gospels give different people, places, words, and sequences. John places the crucifixion on a different Passover timetable from the Synoptics. Some differences can be harmonized, but harmony is not what the pages themselves provide. Historical reading leaves the seams visible. Theological reading asks why the church kept four portraits rather than replacing them with one smooth life.
