This was a shift summed up in the definition of Jesus in the Oxford

This was a shift summed up in the definition of Jesus in the Oxford English Dictionary, which BV (Before Vermes) was "the name of the founder of Christianity" but which was, AV, transmuted on his advice to "the central figure of the Christian faith, a Jewish preacher (c5BC-cAD30) regarded by his followers as the son of God and God incarnate". As the Anglican apostate A N Wilson put it, once one had absorbed the message of Vermes's books it was impossible to view Christianity in the same light ever again. Vermes's scholarship gained purchase from his own singular life. More significantly, perhaps, he was the academic who 25 years ago rescued Jesus from Christianity and reminded the world that the founder of the world's biggest religion was himself, actually, Jewish It seems an odd thing to say now. He set the coffee down by a table on which was neatly piled his manuscript for the forthcoming Volume 26 of The Discoveries in the Judean Desert, the Oxford University Press edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls (the controversial collection of manuscripts discovered in caves near the Dead Sea in the Forties and Fifties which throws new light on the Bible story), of which Vermes has for decades been this country's most formidable student.

Geza Vermes has lived in this country for more than 40 years but he still looks an emigre in his blue slacks, green-checked sports jacket, dark turquoise suede waistcoat and yellow tie. he cottage stood on the edge of a 600-acre wood of broad-limbed oaks, down a lane enclosed by high beech hedges. A scholar's idyll: semi-rural, tranquil yet within reach of the libraries of Oxford. While its owner was making coffee, I surveyed a room lined with hardback books.

There was a gargoyle carved into the antique beam over the fireplace, and comfortable, well-worn furniture. Then, in one of those eerie moments when time wilfully re-orders itself, I was hurled into a world in which all this did not exist and in which Geza Vermes, Oxford's Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies, did indeed perish with his relatives when Hitler's Holocaust finally swept through Hungary in 1944 The room was empty, the furniture gone. Front Row is more alert and focused than Kaleidoscope (though it marks a worrying shift away from criticism and towards the preview puff). I can't see the reason for killing off Science Now, but the programmes that replace it - Frontiers and Connect - don't seem like a step down, and both are a step up from the chirpy "Hey, kids!" attack of Radio 4's other science slot, Big Bang.Of course, this week we've heard Radio 4 on its best behaviour.

For example, in his new issues forum, Thinking Allowed, Laurie Taylor presented an admirably incisive conversation about penal policy; but as he pointed out himself, he was an academic criminologist for 20 years, and if he can't do penal policy there's little hope for him.There are worrying aspects to the new schedule, like the proliferation of shorter, snappier programmes designed to suit modern attention spans, and a number of individually duff programmes: Monday's "social documentary" The Legacy of Wealth, apparently commissioned by the League of the Extremely Rich, and Wednesday's "comedy" panel programme I'm Glad You Asked Me That (the question in this case is either "What on earth is this programme supposed to be about?" or "Who told Gordon Kennedy he's funny?").But you'd have to be a very sclerotic personality to be pining for the old schedules; really, it works far better than anyone could have expected.. And in all this jolly babble, thought-out ideas are squeezed while consumerist trivia is stretched.To be fair, there is no evidence, so far, of any increase in the stupidity quotient. Still, it does point to something significant about the new schedule: the sudden proliferation of chatty, featury magazines - The Learning Curve, Case Notes, Thinking Allowed, Four Corners, The Material World - with, so it seems, only vaguely demarcated briefs The Afternoon Shift may be dead but its progeny live on. And then I heard it discussed again about four hours later on the new magazine Shop Talk.Now, I don't want to build an entire critique of the new schedule on one stray example of repetition. But the effect on the consumer has been similar to a supermarket switch-around: mild annoyance at not being able to find things in their usual place, and familiar brands suddenly disappearing off the shelves altogether.That analogy probably won't go much further - for one thing, the supermarket is for most of us a once-a-week expedition; Radio 4 is a constant home companion. Then again, these days you can order supermarket shopping from home, either over the Internet or through a home delivery service, something I know a lot about because I heard it discussed on the new, extra-long You and Yours on Tuesday afternoon. The new schedule hasn't simply been an affair of displaced cereals and hard-to-locate soaps: much of the old stock was stale and you would be hard put to find a rationale for it.