(in answer to the question 'what specific steps have you taken to assess the risks of mistakes or lies in the NT accounts of both miracles and the words attributed to Jesus?')

Well firstly there is the diagnosis and prescription of the human condition in general and personally.

The prescription is Love of the personal God. The diagnosis is failure of love in general and alienation in general and personally.
How do we check that for mistake or lies? Well one can run the diagnosis past alternative prescriptions to sorting out the general impression that things aren't ''fully the ticket.''...after all what are laws for?

which we can categorise as 1) techniques 2) Commandment following 3) moral irrealism.

The first are not comprehensive since at the very least they don't recognise the depth of the diagnosis Christianity makes in fact to rely on them is to discount totally the prescription. Techniques may help but only at the periphery of needs.

Secondly, commandment following.... recognised need for improvement but commandment following could just mean bodily animation to effect ritual. While that may be of help it is only peripheral.

Finally Moral irrealism. This automatically refutes that anything is amiss and has no actual prescription.

As far as I can see such comparisons are the only way to gauge mistake and lie level in the NT.

No to the rest of the text does it read like reportage. Well yes. That has been analysed by people like former atheist CS Lewis.
we can only again hold these up to other interpretations many of which date much longer after the evnt than the last written part of the NT.

Did Jesus exist Yes.

Can we pick out the miracles from the non miraculous? Difficult given the existence of believing communities so quickly afterwards and then only if one uses a certain philosophy which is a different thing. Then we are into comparison of philosophies.

All in all then. The important focus is on Jesus diagnosis and prescription that he himself and his acts at the end are that prescription.