In 2007 Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI published the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth not just as a devotional book, a "personal search for the face of the Lord", but as one written in conformity with "the historical-critical method". Scholars of this school treat the gospels as ancient literature and investigate them linguistically, historically and doctrinally in the cultural context of their age. The first volume did not really follow these rules: it was devoid of philological analysis and shied away from comparing contradictory statements, such as whether the gospels were intended only for the lost sheep of Israel or for the world at large. We were offered an old-fashioned story in which the gospels were taken quasi-literally and interpreted not in their historical framework, but in light of any passage picked ad lib from the Old and New Testament or from two millennia of Christian thought. It represented biblical exegesis as it was practised in the pre-modern era.