The things they see as unnecessary extras, the accretions of myth and legend, are excised by the scissors to expose the real Jesus. It seems so scientific, but it is all done with mirrors. The magician's art leaves us with the portrait of Rudolf Bultmann or John A. T. Robinson, and again the real Jesus is obscured. By preserving a modicum of New Testament data, we think we have avoided subjectivity. However, the result is the same-a Jesus shaped by the bias of the scholar wielding the scissors and getting