1. The Nature of Historical Research

As an academic discipline, history aims at the reconstruction of past events or nexuses of events involving human beings. An event is meaning-laden (and therefore unified) action. The reconstruction is of the outside of events, the empirically observable data constitutive of them, as represented by the interrogatives of who, what, where, when. The reconstruction is also of the inside of events; the aim is a determination of the purposes and motives pervading the actions of historical figures (what gives meaning to the action) (See R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History). Because the historian seeks to reconstruct the inside of events, he or she is concerned with human intentionality. The investigation of human intentionality informing events, in turn, will involve the historian into the area of the history of ideas, since intentionality is inseparable from the larger philosophical context (the prevailing "worldview" or "interpretation of the world") in which the human beings under investigation find themselves by virtue of being situated in history.
 

2. Historical Research and the Canonical Gospels

When dealing with the historical reconstruction of events intended by the gospels, the Christian historian distinguishes between canonical and extra-canonical sources, and handles each differently. Since they intend historical events, the gospels are sources for historical reconstruction. But, unlike extra-canonical texts, the Christian historian assumes that what these texts intend is true. In other words, the Christian historian does not adopt a critical stance towards these texts as potential sources, but admits these texts a priori as reliable in all that they intend. This is not true of the extra-canonical sources, which are handled critically. (See Barry D. Smith, "The Historical-Critical Method, Jesus Research, and the Christian Scholar," Trinity Journal 15 NS [1994] 201-20). Such special pleading for the scriptures as historical sources violates the principle of academic neutrality, the cornerstone of the historical-critical method; nevertheless, the believer has no choice, since faith in Christ necessarily involves the acceptance of the authority of at least one text that generates the proposition that Jesus is the Christ.
 

3. Historical Method

The method followed by the Christian historian when dealing with the reconstruction of events or nexuses of events intended by the canonical gospels is as follows:

3.1. He or she begins with a relevant question that functions to specify the unknown that is to be made known by the inquiry. Doing this gives purpose and focus to a historical investigation.

3.2. She or he will specify sub-questions, the answering of which will contribute to the answering of the main question.

3.3. He or she will collect and analyze all the canonical sources relevant for answering the sub-questions and the main question.

3.4. She or he will collect all the relevant potential non-canonical sources.

3.5. From the relevant, potential, non-canonical sources, he or she will determine which of these are relevant, actual sources and to what extent in what respect these are useful for answering the sub-questions.

3.6. She or he will synthesize the canonical and extra-canonical sources as answers to the sub-questions.

In practice, this method is not followed in a linear fashion. Rather, it is more like a spiral. The historian will move through all stages of this method many times, each time moving to a higher level.