Literary artistry and historical accuracy in the Bible: did they make it up?

 I tried to wax lyrical today about the wonderful literary artistry of the Bible. 

The Baptism of Christ is full of quotations and allusions and hints of other Bible passages. The same could be said of many other narratives that are presented as historical. 

But someone might say, "ah, so did the gospel writers make it up to fit other things in the Bible?" In fact liberal scholars have sometimes made exactly that claim. These events are shown to fit prophecies so perhaps they were created to fit them!

When it comes to reading Bible narrative, is literary artistry in conflict with historical accuracy? 

I would say no for at least two reasons:

(1) The Bible's history is always selective and theologically oriented, not somehow objective or exhaustive. 

The gospel writers explicitly tell us they have deliberately left out some things and included others. They write with theological, pastoral, evangelistic or apologetic agendas not simply to tell us everything which happened. This is clear when we consider that only two gospels describe the birth of Jesus and none tells us much about Jesus' first 30 years. These are not modern critical biographies. 

Once one accepts that we are dealing with selective accounts written for a purpose (and aren't all accounts really like that?) there is great scope for literary artistry in how the story is told within the bounds of truth, 

Consider the scene from my house. It could easily be described in a way that would allude to The 23rd Psalm: the Lord is my Shepherd. I would stress the sheep and the green grass and the path and the stream - maybe even the cups and feasts we have at the Rectory. I wouldn't mention the cars or electricity cables. My account would be stylised but could be true and accurate if not comprehensive. The scene could also be described in a totally different way which didn't hint at Psalm 23 at all: house, tarmac, wheel barrow, green house, dog, cat, trees, grey sky and so on.  

(2) God is actually in charge of history. 

It is not just that the gospel writers told their stories so that this was like that. God ruled all things so that this was like that! 

Mark didn't invent the voice from heaven at the baptism so that the baptism echoed the creation. Rather, God made the baptism look like the creation account by speaking over the waters and sending the Spirit. 

The literary artistry belongs to God's government of the universe as much as it does to the Bible writers' careful selection.  

Given God's sovereignty and the literary genius of the human writers of the Bible and the Holy Spirit, there's no need to play off history and art in a zero sum game. You can have your history and enjoy your Scriptural-allusion cake.