ABSTRACT
Both Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright profess to be devout Christians, actively involved in church life. Both wrote their doctoral dissertations at Oxford University, just a few years apart, under the direction of the same man, George Caird. This chapter explores the consequences, so far as historical methodology goes, of a historian's crossing the line between history and theology. Borg crosses the line by invoking mysticism, Wright by invoking theology and philosophy. Wright, whose views on the historical Jesus are unusually elaborate and finely nuanced, rejects altogether the idea that history should be kept separate from theology. Sometimes he seems even to reject the very distinction between history and theology. In Wright's view, Jesus was very Jewish, and first-century Judaism can be understood only within the context of "intense eschatological expectation". He agrees with other historians that Jesus never intended to found an institution that would have the career that the Christian church has taken.
