TimothyT,
I wish I had your simple, if somewhat simplistic, faith.
Each writing in the Bible has to be read through the culture of each community that produced it and edited it. This requires understanding each community, looking at each piece through their ancient Jewish eyes.
The Gospels you find endearing were written from the middle to the end of the first century. Each Gospel was written to counter heresies that had arisen at that time, which need to be understood. For example, to counter the Jewish Jews (as against the Christian Jews), the anonymous writers searched the Hebrew Scriptures to show that they pointed to this person Yeshua (= Joshua). They used Isa 53 and Ps 22, but they had to distort the original meaning. The Jews could not understand how a murdered person, and hence defeated, could be considered the Messiah; they had the concept of a victorious, powerful, military figure who would free them. The Christian's Messiah was defeated and put to death by the occupying powers!
The Gospel writers took verses that had nothing to do with a Jewish Messiah (=Christ) and reworked them to say that they did apply to him (born in Bethlehem, come out of Egypt, etc.). They wrote stories that made Yeshua the new Moses (invented the Sermon on the Mount, feeding the 5000 = manna story, etc, for example). They wrote miracle stories, not to show his power over nature, but each was written to demonstrate that he performed those same great things performed by the Hebrew heroes (raised the only son of a widow, walked on water, etc.). They were not interested in saying whether these things really happened, they were giving a message to their contemporary Jews that this was the new Elijah, the new Elisha, the new Moses, and so on, all rolled into one.
If you want to get closer to the time of Yeshua, you are stuck with Paul, since he died before any other NT writing was produced. Paul had to write because he had so many opposers and detractors. We get an idea of their views through Paul's comments. (Remembering which NT writings are genuinely his. So many are not). Then you are compelled to research the writings of the times that were not included in the NT canon -- and then research the canonisation process and the reasons for the selection of those writings by that Pauline section of the 4th century church. The NT would have been so different had the Petrine sector been dominant.
It's not simple, but the process adds colour, depth and meaning to what we read.
Doug
