rationalist German counterparts, Renan denied any room for the supernatural in his reconstruction. One might raise the question here of why there are not more conservative voices in the choir of first questers? Part of the answer lies in the fact that more conservative renderings of Jesus are short on new and daring proposals, following a course instead that is heavily dependent on the Gospel accounts themselves. In the history of the quest, old news (i.e., traditional conclusions about Jesus) is