"If your eye causes you to sin," said Jesus, "pluck it out and throw it away." He also said : "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, ... he cannot be my disciple." Such apparently difficult teachings cease to be so difficult if one accepts them as instances of overstatement -- statements in which Jesus makes a point emphatically by overstating it. "That Jesus used overstatement and hyperbole in his teaching has been evident throughout the history of the church," writes the author. "The degree to which he used it, however, has always been debated." The author articulates thirteen criteria or principles "by which exaggeration can be detected in the teachings of Jesus." The final chapter explains the beneficial purposes and functions of exaggerated language in the gospels.