ABSTRACT
This chapter considers three responses to the challenge posed by secular historical scholarship to traditional Christian beliefs. The first—;;Only Faith—;;was to reject secular scholarship whenever it contradicts the claims of religious faith. The second—;; Faith Seeking Understanding—;;was to integrate the diverse claims of secular scholarship and religious faith into a single coherent account. A third response—;;Only Reason—;;is the polar opposite of Only Faith. The Only Reason response is guilty of epistemological imperialism, however, in its excluding from consideration unabashedly religious interpretations of Jesus. In the exclusively naturalistic one also have some advantages, but only by incurring the considerable disadvantage of making one's view vulnerable to the charge of epistemological imperialism. In multiperspectivalism, one can have these advantages seemingly without being vulnerable to the charge of epistemological imperialism. The chapter suggests that nonexperts can approach historical Jesus studies so as to leave it genuinely open whether Jesus had "supernatural" powers.
