This article gives a survey of the important questions which scholars have faced during the last twenty-five years, as they have attempted to reconstruct the life of Jesus. The conceptions of Jesus bequeathed by the nineteenth century are briefly indicated, and the apologetic interests which dominate most biographies of Jesus are shown. The critical historical approach is carefully described, and such problems as Jesus' eschatological views, the relation of Jesus to the Jewish and the gentile culture of his day, and the more critical valuation of our sources for learning about Jesus, are discussed.