I'm not sure if this is an acceptable answer, but for what it's worth, I'll share what I know. I studied Biblical exegesis in the university; it was not my main focus but I read a few books and some basics about the methodology. I cannot give you any meaningful names, as the books I read were all written by Finnish authors and were intended for Finnish students as learning material. As such, they were more of summaries than research on their own right.

Now, the main problem with any quest for historical Jesus is the fact that we have no contemporaneous sources. We do have the Gospels, and they offer a great wealth of information, but they were written a generation or three after Jesus' death. Besides, the writers of the Gospels did not even try to report the events exactly as they seemed to have happened. Rather, they composed narratives that 1) functioned well as stories, i.e. were chronological narratives with clear themes and naturally flowing plots; 2) supported their own theologies and presented Jesus in a way most agreeable to them.

As such, the only meaningful way to build an image of historical Jesus is to try to "read between the lines". This field is notoriously speculative, but there are a few rules of thumb that are almost universally accepted. A classic is the argument of awkwardness: if something in the Gospels seems unfavorable to Jesus, then it is quite likely true, for a Christian author would be unlikely to portray Jesus negatively unless he was 100% sure it was true. (There are problems with such an approach, because it will produce an overtly negative image of Jesus because in its extreme form this argument will exclude all nice things Jesus did.)

Another common argument stems from dissimilarity: ideas foreign to the 1st-century Judea may indicate true historical memories, whereas conventional ideas are more likely to be later legends. (The problem with this argument, then, is the fact that it constructs an image of Jesus that is utterly unlike the historical context of his time and place.)

The Jewish culture of the era viewed crucifixion as the most disgraceful and brutal of all punishments. It was an honor to become a martyr, unless you were crucified. Crucifixion was regarded as so gruesome a way to die that it proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the person executed had been wrong and could not possibly have been favored by god. For the followers of the executed person, it was a moment of self-reflection: you had been wrong, and the only way forward was to admit you had been wrong. Sticking to the previously held belief in the crucified leader would have been ridiculous, even sacrilegious.

All this makes it very probable that the crucifixion of Jesus was a historical event. But that is not all. Why didn't his followers abandon him, as was customary in such circmustances? It is almost certain they genuinely believed Jesus had been resurrected. Claims of resurrection caused much more harm to the disciples' reputation than admitting a mistake would have caused. Even the Gospels mention the disciples were baffled by Jesus' death at first, and only a handful of women (second-rate citizens back then) went to his tomb to witness its emptiness.

The real question here is: where did the notion of resurrection come? It was once thought that the dying-and-rising god motif was a cliché of Ancient Near Eastern religions. Modern research has proved this was not the case. There were stories of gods and heroes returning from the underworld, but they took place in the mythical past. Gospels were written but a few decades after Jesus' death; Paul for certain had met people who had known Jesus personally and he talks a lot about crucifuxion.

To put it shortly: mortals did not return from the dead, unless they became ghosts. Jesus did raise a few people from the dead, but these were more of extreme cases of faith-healing. Jesus himself was resurrected by a direct intervention of the God -- the God who was supposed to have cursed his self-stylized son to the most horrific death imaginable.

Another curious fact is that the Gospel narratives conflict each other all the time, but they are pretty unanimous on the belief that Jesus was indeed resurrected physically. The empty tomb narrative in general holds water pretty well, and it seems plausible the tomb intended for Jesus was indeed empty, for reasons lost to memory.

This has been kind of a rant, for which I'm sorry. But I promise were are close to finish.

The problem here is that the lines of reasoning that are normally used to attest the credibility of certain passages in the Gospels seem to indicate that the resurrection, too, was a historical event. If it was not a supernatural event, the evidence would be extremely convincing. The main argument against this is, of course, that resurrections do not happen -- and that is an even more convincing argument, at least from a scientific point of view.

Make of that what you want.