The man from nazareth as his contemporaries saw him

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) was a prominent liberal Baptist minister and author. He wrote many other books, such as The Living of These Days: The Autobiography of Harry Emerson Fosdick , Guide to Understanding the Bible , Riverside Sermons , etc. He wrote in the Prologue to this 1949 book, "The frustration which one experiences when one tries to detour around the first interpretations of the Master and to come immediately into the presence of the 'historic' Jesus is made evident in the many diverse ideas about him which have resulted... what each man sees, when he tries the method of direct attack, is what he bring eyes to see, and the portrait he paints is commonly so highly colored by subjective factors that it is more a revelation of himself than of Jesus. This book is an endeavor to try an indirect method of approach... to see from the inside the way Pharisees and Sadducees felt and thought, to put ourselves into the place of first-century outcasts and sinners... To be sure, I have tried not to let this method enslave and shackle me. The aim is still to see what manner of man the historic Jesus was, what he thought and did, and how he felt." (Pg. 10-11)