Accounts can be totally--or nearly totally--false, in that almost everything they contain might be in conflict with objective fact. Stories, on the other hand, can be only as false as the conclusions people draw from them.
Jesus tells either stories, or else parables, which in effect are the same as stories, in that they make narratives out of idealized situations. Neither purport to describe objective facts.
Stories and parables are meant to convey meaning. Stories and parables operate, when handled properly, within the realization that truth is ultimately ungraspable. That is why it is neither mysterious nor unjust that Jesus tells the masses parables, depriving them of more explicit explanations. What I term "explicit explanations" are actually intentionally misnamed by me, because no explanation of any supernatural truth can ever be explicit.
What are held to be clear and definite supernatural truths (dogmas) are not merely untrue (such as might be said of untrue accounts), but are infinitely worse, in that the notion that such ostensible truths can be true (or even false) disregards their very nature as contentions about that which cannot be contended.
Accounts (and their naturally-accompanying dogmas) are things of this world, dispensed and monitored by the controllers of information (or what is purported to be information.) Accounts can be very useful, in that--when true--they correspond to ascertainable and testable facts. When false, they can be shown to be so--if the controllers of information will allow it. In either event, accounts whether true or false are subordinated in practice to the existence of worldly authorities.
Dogmas (which purport of demonstrable derivation from ostensible accounts, and purport therefore to be necessary conclusions from agreed-upon facts) are the property of the authorities, no matter how explicit, formal, or ideologically-legitimate (or not) those authorities be. A religious dogma can be enforced by a political state, or it can be imposed somewhat less formally by a political state that lends its sanction to supposedly uncoerced religion.
Accounts, therefore, are things of this world. Accounts are things of the loci of authority in this world. Accounts are, in Bible-type language, the province of the powers of the world.
In the gospel stories (differently-arranged, as stories typically are) Satan offers Jesus the powers of the world. Jesus refuses. The denominations, on the other hand, have taken up Satan's offer in promulgating what might as well be called "laws": the ostensibly unquestionable dogmas of faith.
The truth of the gospels resides in stories, of which the gospels are rich sources. Some gospel stories have themes and bounds that are easy to find, and some gospel stories are far more elusive. All Jesus promises us is the value of searching for them.
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