A presupposition of the perennial quest for the historical Jesus is that we can't take the Gospels at face value. We can't accept the Gospels as is. Rather, we must go behind the Gospels to determine what really happened. The Gospels are like an archeological dig. You must scrape away layers of detritus and debris to uncover some shards of the historical Jesus. As best, the real Jesus is hidden somewhere in the Gospels, rather than out in the open, as they stand.
But, of vary the metaphor, the exercise often resembles carving marble. Give Bernini and Michaelangelo the same slab of marble, tell them to carve the same thing (e.g. David), and they will come up with two completely different statues. That's because what they find in the marble matches the image in their heads.
In the hands of more conservative questers, the results of the quest can be of some apologetic value. Often, though, this is not a bridge, but a destination.
What is lost sight of is that Christians are obligated to believe in the Jesus of the four Gospels, not the reconstructed Jesus of any particular scholar. The quest for the historical Jesus is essentially misguided, not because we can't find Jesus, but because he was never out of sight.
