Jesus-Research has been dominated by four major periods. Stephen T. Davis gives a great summary of its history here. I’ve outlined his summary below. His article, “Why the Historical Jesus Matters was originally published in 1999 in Theology News and Notes, but appears to have been republished in his 2006 book, Christian Philosophical Theology.

Here’s the summary:
The Quest for the Historical Jesus
H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768)
Johann Friedrich Strauss (1835)
Ernest Renan (1863)
Albert Schweitzer (1909)

No Quest
Rudolf Bultmann (1921)

New Quest
Ernst Kasemann
Gunther Bornkamm
James M. Robinson
Edward Schillebeckx
Marcus Borg
Burton Mack
John Dominic Crossan
Jesus Seminar

Third Quest
John P. Meier
Martin Hengel
E.P. Sanders
Ben Witherington
N.T. Wright