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After delineating the process whereby Christology has undergone a paradigmatic shift in the past half-century, the author identifies two issues (made crucial by the Jesus Seminar), namely the meaning of the term "the historical Jesus" and its theological import. He reviews the debate on the topic led in the 1980s by David Tracy and Elizabeth Johnson. The subsequent collapse of the exegetical consensus that both authors presumed sheds new light on the issues. Finally, an analysis of what constitutes "the historical Jesus" clarifies the character and limits of the new christological paradigm.] T HE RAPID COLLAPSE and near disappearance of neo-Scholastic manual theology after Vatican II left Roman Catholic theologians with a massive task of reconstruction. The upshot has been, in the eyes of some, a period of creative ferment, while others look askance at a chaotic pluralism that in their view threatens the very substance of the faith. Within Christology, at least, enough clarity and unity of direction have emerged to allow John P. Galvin to speak of a paradigm shift. 1 Previously, the basic terms framing the problematic of the standard neo-Scholastic christological treatise were drawn from the dogmatic definition of the Council of Chalcedon. One sought first the intelligibility of the unity of Christ's two natures in his one person, and one then proceeded to elucidate the impact on his humanity that had been assumed by the divine person. That entire problematic, Galvin observed, has been subsumed and relocated of late within a new one, one now framed in terms of the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith.Galvin rightly claimed paradigmatic significance for this shift. To cite WILLIAM P. LOEWE received his Ph.D. from Marquette University. He is currently associate professor of religion and religious education at the

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The present decade has seen the publication of a large number of christologies. Chalcedon no longer sets the logic of these new works. Taking their cue from biblical studies, they assign the resurrection a key position as the swing-point from the earthly Jesus to the ensuing theological and dogmatic tradition of Christian faith. They likewise agree in locating the origin of faith in the resurrection in the events which gave rise to the Easter appearance tradition within the New Testament.At this point significant differences emerge. The present article offers a sample of representative positions in order to exhibit how they differ with regard to the kinds of question they are willing to entertain about the Easter appearances as well as with regard to the kinds of reality claim they wish to assert. The article concludes that the key issue dividing them is the philosophical question of the nature of objectivity.