Does the historical Jesus matter?

Abstract

Perceptions of the relationship between the historical study of Jesus and Christian theology have swung like a pendulum between two extremes. In the nineteenth century, there was a widespread assumption that the historical Jesus mattered significantly; for much of the twentieth century, the dominant claim has been that the historical Jesus has little or no theological significance. In recent scholarship, there are tentative steps toward affirming a 'both-and' position: though Christian faith is to some extent independent of historical research, it is also true that images of Jesus do very much affect images of the Christian life.