Do the Gospels offer an accurate view of Jesus?

No. Ian Wilson (Jesus: The Evidence) says it can come as quite a shock to discover that no one can even be sure who wrote the gospels. Despite the versions printed in our Bibles long having borne the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, these names are mere attributions, and even as such are rather less reliable than attributions given to unsigned works of art. The gospels were written far too late, and not by the reliable sources genrally assumed, to be considered historical.

Mark's Gospel ought to be the most reliable, since it was the first gospel to be written, and the authors of the other gospels relied, directly or indirectly, on it for everything they knew about the life and mission of Jesus. However, Mark is well-known for its geographical and cultural errors, so is also unlikely to have provided an accurate portrayal of Jesus.

The view of Jesus, and of the disciples, provided by by each gospel differs from each other. For example, Mark's Gospel portrays Jesus as fully human, adopted by God at his baptism; Matthewand Luke portray Jesus as the Son of God from conception; John portrays Jesus as pre-existing and fully divine.

We can neither confirm nor add to the view of Jesus provided by the gospels, because there is no historical evidence, and even the other early Christian texts are unhelpful. Rudolf Bultmann, acknowledged by many as the twentieth century's most influential theological thinker, condemned as useless further attempts to try to reconstruct the Jesus of history: I do indeed think that we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary.