I said that I think we should read the gospel stories and related writings: as stories rather than history, but that could be misunderstood.
I think a fundamental ewrror is reading Scripture in the context of today's categories, eg history, myth, and so on.
The ancients were not subject to such categories, and as such their biographies – as the Gospels in a broad sense are – combine elements from history, geography, sociology, mythology and so on, they'll use whatever is most appropriate to make their point.
And they were read in that light by the audience they were addressing.
It's only now we fall into error by making certain erroneous assumptions: If it's not history as we currently define it, it's a story ... the error clearly being, as someone said before a 'baby out with the bathwater' error.
To read and understand Scripture, you first have to know how to read and understand Scripture.
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From the religious point of view, the religious educational faculties are very remiss at not doing this. It was hinted at on my Graduate course, but only recently, in reading specific writers, have I come to understnd it better.
From the secular point of view, the same criticism applies. The religious believe it,m because they believe it. The secular don't believe it, because they don't.
But both, if pushed to explain why, whill most likely fall back on erroneous assumptions.
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There's a lot of geography in Mark's gospel that's wrong. He'd never been to the places he was writing about. But Jesus had, and that's the point – mark could have located his 'story' in some generic, fictional place, as writers do. But he can't, because he's writing about someone who lived in a specific place, at a specific time.
Luke, apart from his glaring errors in the nativity account, drops a few little details into his story which historians cherish as insights into sociopolitical conditions in 1st century Judea.
John clearly knew the Temple in Jerusalem before its destruction, as archaeology has discovered the pool beside which Jesus performed a miracle, a pool with was long assumed not to have existed.
So to say it's not history is not quite correct, as there's a lot of history there.
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The point is, even the argument is false. The Gospels, like Paul's letters, are
theology.
So if Mark is writing a story about an apocalyptic prophet who's not just another apocalyptic prophet, but actually the Messiah, and something even more than that. But why then does his story make such a point about the immanent return of the Risen Savour, when at the time of writing, some 40 years after the event ... it hasn't happened?
Why, if concocting a story about Jesus, did the writers simply pass over that bit without comment ... ?
