Crawford then asseses the success or failure of some of the major studies of the historical Jesus publishing in the 1980s and 1990s, bringing up important touchstones for an effective critical apparatus by which to judge the truth or otherwise of the historical approach. In the end, Crawford argues, the search itself may be elusive. Scholarship is too often driven by the theological rather than strictly historical considerations, while the concern to describe the historical Jesus - in whatever terms - as the founder of Christianity tends to be a blind alley in the search for Christian origins. This books aims to make the connection between the two approaches.
