ABSTRACT
The secularquest for the historical Jesus has challenged many thoughtful Christians. Christians who respond to the challenge to their beliefs posed by historical Jesus studies, rather than neatly fitting into any of these categories of response, tend to lean toward one or another of them. For instance, even those who are drawn to the Only Faith response generally concede that there are a variety of limited roles that may be assigned legitimately to historical evidence, such as allowing it to be used to fill in small gaps in, or even to correct in minor ways, beliefs that are arrived at through faith. It is natural to suppose that the current conflict between faith and secular historical scholarship is a child of the Enlightenment, recently grown to maturity. In Luke Johnson's view, traditional Christians are ill advised to follow them, especially when Christians already have a beautiful, accommodating structure, resting securely on the rock-solid foundation of faith.
