One of the consequences of the nineteenth-century quest for the historical Jesus was a marked growth in biblical fiction. The more energetically European theologians sought out the Jesus of fact and history, the more he became a figure of the fictive imagination. It was a paradox that was particularly pronounced in Britain. Somewhat inclined to take up a conservative, even reactionary stance to the Higher Criticism, the British turned instead to Lives of Jesus, in many respects a pragmatic response to the ever-increasing divide between the Christ of dogmatic Christology and the Jesus of history. The majority of English Lives of Jesus were not, as any serious theologian would have wished, produced by scholars of religion. William Sanday, one of Britain's foremost biblical critics during the years covered in this study, was one of those who steadfastly resisted the lure of Gospel biography, choosing instead to publicize the work of Continental scholars to an English readership through numerous critical studies and journal articles. The most influential and popular Victorian Lives were written by non-theologians: Ecce Homo was the work of an historian, with successive prominent biographies coming from the pens of churchmen such as F. W. Farrar, William Hanna and Alfred Edersheim. While critical apparatus in the form of footnotes and lists of scholarly authorities gave these Lives some semblance of the academic method, there was little serious theology to be found beyond the paratexts. This absence of theological rigour and engagement was very much as D. F. Strauss had predicted in 1865:

The prevailing taste for Lives of Jesus was not only held responsible for casting theology into the pit: it was also arraigned for failing to take seriously the responsibilities of the biographer.