Modern scholarship has made Jesus into a sage figure, understandable and normal, though with a challenging message. Jesus Elusive restores a mystical quality to the person Jesus by redefining what it means to be human. It centres its argument on the statement, "Whatever can be said of persons can be said of the universe". Modern physics discovers an unpredictable universe, and Jesus Elusive reveals a personal universe. Hughes claims that the universe produces phenomena that are integral to its nature, and that the personal is thus a fundamental property of matter. After a genre analysis of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Hughes posits that our problem is not that we have made God into an idol, but that we idolize ourselves, meaning we objectify what "being human" means. We are far more elusive than our ideas about ourselves, and so too is the person and nature of Jesus. Redefining Jesus involves redefining ourselves, and by so doing, recovering a sense of Life's adventure.
