As I've continued to consider the thoughts of Luke Timothy Johnson and N. T. Wright on the historical Jesus and the importance of the quest to theology, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading Johnson's critical essay, "A Historiographical Response to Wright's Jesus," in Jesus & the Restoration of Israel, along with Wright's response ("In Grateful Dialogue: A Response").
I have to say, I haven't seen too many NT (or for that matter OT) scholars really deal with matters of historiography and historical epistemology as Wright does in New Testament and the People of God (although I just checked out several books by the late Ben F. Meyer, and apparently he does), so I don't think Johnson's criticisms were completely fair. Nevertheless, he did bring up some interesting points.
I look forward to further thinking through these matters as an Orthodox Christian, as I have seen a number of Orthodox theologians lately, along with recent Orthodox seminary grads, take Johnson's comments in The Real Jesus to an extreme, arguing that it does not matter what really happened 2,000 years ago in the life and death of Jesus. All that matters is that we have faith in the (possibly fictional) cross of Christ. I think this is nonsense, and I'm not even sure Johnson would take his own comments to this extreme. (It's worth noting, for instance, the ways in which he has nuanced his comments in The Real Jesus in the above-mentioned essay, along with his contribution more recently to The Historical Jesus: Five Views.)
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