It "seems" that you see them (at least the Gospels) as merely "collections of Jesus stories" & "tales" which the "authors" "deliberately" compiled with some agendized purpose of manipulating their readers minds in such a way as to cause them to come to accept the writers own personal belief system(s). (Am I close??) On the other hand - in a RADICALLY different manner - I believe the Scriptures to be EXACTLY what they claim to be (literally 100's & 100's of times throughout the SIXTY SIX Books) - the very WORD & WORDS of GOD revealed to mankind …
Yes, you are close. I am unsure why such a position is even remotely controversial, nor how Christians believe in a radically different matter.
First of all, aren’t they collections of Jesus stories? They aren’t diaries. They aren’t words on a scrabble board. They aren’t dictionaries. If you believe these are something “radically different” than stories about Jesus—I am profoundly curious as to what you possibly claim they are.
Secondly, most Bible scholars I know, from conservative to liberal to non-Christian to everything in-between hold to the position these particular stories and portions of stories are deliberately chosen by the authors. Inerrantists in particular constantly claim the authors were aware of multiple facts but only focused on a portion. E.g., when confronted with the difference between the women at the tomb, Inerrantists often claim Matthew knew Salome went to the tomb on Sunday morning, but only listed Mary and Mary, whereas Mark listed Mary, Mary and Salome. Or John just listing one Mary.
Either they were deliberately choosing, or only knew a portion, or were creating contradictory stories. Matthew and Luke ordered stories differently. Mark placed them in chiasms. John placed the clearing of the temple at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, as compared to the Synoptic Gospels’ placing at the end, etc.
John’s gospel even indicated there were other stories not included. John 21:25.
Now, the authors’ agenda becomes more tricky. We generally presume the authors did have an agenda, because people who write a disseminated work generally have a reason for doing so. They want their work to portray something; to generate some response from the recipient. It is possible the authors of every single Gospel randomly grabbed stories from a big pot, and pasted them on paper with no thought of who would read it.
This makes little sense, in light of the extra-ordinary results. For example, Mark writes in chiasms—a particular form of “sandwiching” ideas. Jesus cursing the fig tree (Mark 11:12-26) then clearing the temple, then returning to the results of the fig tree is one (of many) examples.
Or saying, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last” and then Judas Iscariot (who is listed as the last disciple) being the first to betray Jesus and Peter (listed the first disciple) being the last to betray Jesus. I could go on and on with examples from gospels demonstrating deliberate placement, phrasing and stories by the author.
The fact the authors had an agenda is also not very controversial, and (as far as I know) accepted by virtually all. Again, I would be curious, if you think they did not have a reason for forming the stories, how they put them together?
The real question, of course, is what that agenda was. I am uncertain what you mean by “manipulating their readers minds in such a way as to cause them to come to accept the writers own personal belief system(s).” We don’t know what the author’s personal belief systems were, so this claim is irrelevant.
We don’t know who the authors were. We can speculate, and many attempt to attribute the authors to the traditional (Matthew the Disciple, Thomas the Disciple, etc.) Some of those speculations are stronger than others, but the bottom line is that we don’t know. We don’t know when the authors wrote. Again, we attempt to determine by the writings themselves, but whether they were written prior to the fall of Jerusalem (70 C.E.) would impact the why they were written.
We don’t know the intended audience. Was the Gospel of Matthew intended to supplement the Gospel of Mark or supplant the Gospel of Mark? Same question with the Gospel of Luke as to the Gospel of Mark. Matthew and Luke used Mark in writing their Gospels, why didn’t John? Was that to a completely separate community, and if so, where was that community?
Some Gospels we only have fragments (Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Hebrews, Signs Gospels.) Other Gospels, through textual criticism, reveal additions (Adulterous Woman story, ending of Mark). Other Gospels reveal a very different Jesus (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of John vs. Synoptic Gospels).
And in the end, the way we can determine the authors’ intent—the only way we have—is from the writing itself, which is limited without this additional information.
(And I’m not even getting into the different context, economic system, government and society of First Century Judea; also impacting the content.)
What biblical scholars understand (and write thousands of books and millions of articles on) is the complexity of determining these authors’ intents. Obviously there is disagreement and agreement, depending on which person you read.
To be honest, the “radical difference” between you and I is that I don’t read the Gospels with a Sunday School mind; merely reading them and wondering how to apply them to my 21st century American life. I wrestle with them, and read on them, and delve into them, trying to draw out (as much as feasible) what they were trying to get to. Why did Mark end his Gospel when he did? Why have women at the tomb? Where was Joseph, Jesus’ father and Mary, Jesus’ mother, when Jesus died? Why did Mark have another Joseph do Jesus’ father’s job, and another Mary do Jesus’ mother’s job? (Did you ever think about that, or what a coincidence that would be?)
I could spend pages and pages on the complexity within the Gospels. Why did Luke include an apocryphal type story of Jesus at 12? Why did John change the date of Jesus’ death? Why didn’t John know the names of the disciples?
The “radical difference” is that I understand how unremarkable my position is within the biblical scholarship world, whereas most Christians sitting in pews year after year, decade after decade haven’t even thought of the simplest question in this regard.
When they do, they see such thinking as confrontational, whereas it is actually typical.
