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In 2010 Christianity Today had a featured series based on the question:
“Should We Abandon Studying the Historical Jesus?”
The cover article is by NT scholar Scott McKnight: “The Jesus We’ll Never Know:
Why scholarly attempts to discover the ‘real’ Jesus have failed. And why that’s a good thing.”
There are 3 articles responding to McKnight:
–N. T. Wright: No, We Need History
–Craig Keener: Jesus Studies Matter
–Darrell Bock: No, We Need Context
Response: The past searches for the ‘historical Jesus’ have been difficult at best for evangelical and believing scholars.
So much of the time was spent on assumptions that the gospels were somewhat unreliable. The inherent problem with this approach is that it leaves us with a ‘Jesus’ of conjecture that usually says more about the belief system and biases of the scholar than anything else.
The N.T. Wright article is the best of the bunch from my perspective. Incredibly concise and to the point.