From Gospels to the Historical Jesus

I have finally begun reading (again, but much more closely) the Gospels in the New Testament as part of my course on 'The Gospels and Jesus'. Immediately, I was struck by a seemingly insurmountable difficulty. Namely, how can I go from reading this Gospel text to saying anything about the historical Jesus. I was baffled. I was stuck on the question of 'method'

But then I remembered the approach of my course textbook (Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus). First, one must understand each Gospel; then, one can begin to make the jump to the historical Jesus.

I think I'm going to follow this approach. My first goal will be to understand each of the Gospels as individual texts. Having then understood the world of each of the Gospels, I can then begin to form my picture of the historical Jesus.

In general terms: understand each of your sources first, and only then try to put all the pieces together.

Well, at least that's my approach for now. Unless I come across a better way. I always love better ways.

-Kev