My problem: I had to start from scratch, because theological Jesus research

is ideologically suspect due to its close links with the church. Beyond the theological genius cult around the religion’s founder, Jesus, and beyond the outdated thesis that people make history, the questions to be answered are the usual historical issues: sources, environment, story of events, impact, literary history of source texts.

The next point is usually the question of the actual status of research. The topics of Jesus and early Christianity are usually only examined academically from the theological point of view, however; non-theological work invariably depends on the theologians’ preparation of the sources.