How Do Historians Read the Gospels?

Are the gospels reliable as historical accounts? In an earlier post I wrote that the gospels are unique ancient documents. They are not written primarily as historical accounts by professional historians. Instead they are the collected stories, memories and experiences of the community of Jesus Christ’s disciples. Therefore we treat them as the documents they are: memories, anecdotes and stories of faith. On the one hand this type of story is not a professional, cross referenced academic work. Someone looking for that type of work may be disappointed. On the other hand, it is more like folk history. This is a legitimate form of historical record keeping. It is simply a different form of historical record keeping than that written by a single historian.