That said, most scholars, Christian, non-Christian or Calathumpian, accept that vast swathes of the gospels can't be taken at face value via some literalist reading. So saying this is not some evidence of any "atheist bias", it's simply accepting a consensus of reasonable scholarship.
Saying that vast swathes of the gospels can't be taken at face value via some literalist reading (with which I agree), is very different to saying vast swathes of the gospels are shown to be utterly false. The latter is spin, not 'a consensus of reasonable scholarship'.
Did you see where I explained what I was saying when I used the phrase "utterly false"? I don't believe vast swathes of them are "utterly false". Nor do I (or any reasonable scholar for that matter) believe they can be taken at face value or even read as highly reliable journalistic reporting. They are primarily works of theology, not history.
Blunders like the one above indicate how seriously the author of gLuke can be taken as a "historian". He takes the new genre of "gospel" and dresses parts of it up in some of the trappings of historical writing of the time. Ditto for Acts.
Could you recommend some recent scholarship on Luke and historiography, as well as 'the new genre of "gospel"'?
Maurice Casey's excellent new book Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of his Life and Teaching does a good job on both questions. I will be reviewing this book in an upcoming post on Armarium Magnum. Casey has managed to annoy both voceriferous Myther defender Neil Godfrey and Biblical literalist apologist J.P. Holding - a good indication that he's on the right track.