Didn't Jesus write?

[dorothy_smith]

I wonder if Jesus ever wrote anything: poems or prose and so on. Didn’t He read the OT? If He did then He must have been able to write. If He was literate why didn’t Jesus write down His teachings? Some suggestions are that He was illiterate (I disagree with that theory; Jesus was a highly intelligent man).

Shouldn’t something as important as the salvation of mankind have been written down first hand? Jesus might not have wanted His words written down. Maybe He wanted His teachings to be passed on mouth to mouth and by examples of love. He might have disapproved of all the highbrow theology and reams of church doctrine. Perhaps that why there isn’t a gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

[puzzleannie]

well he spent 3 years walking up and down the length of the Holy Land preaching, teaching, healing and driving out demons, and he did not have a laptop, so it is hard to see where he would have had leisure to write (as a writer I can attest it takes a quiet time, place and materials to write). I feel a sense of deja vu and I am sure this question has been asked and answered before here, try a search.

there is a Gospel of Jesus, it was revealed by Jesus to his apostles, witnessed by all who followed him as disciples, and by thousands of independent witnesses who may or may not have become his followers. It was written down in 4 different narratives by 4 different witnesses for 4 different audiences from 4 different points of view. Jesus is God’s full complete revelation. Books written by human witnesses, recipients and narrators of God’s Revelation, compiled in the bible, are human records of that Revelation, but they are not the Revelation, Jesus is the Word of God full and complete, entire and eternal.

 

[Church_Militant]

You can ask this but without any evidence, it’s all speculation. Why do you ask? Were you just wondering?
Pax tecum,

 

[LaSalle]

Hi puzzleannie

hahahah that was a cute reply! Seriously no offence meant!

well he spent 3 years walking up and down the length of the Holy Land preaching, teaching, healing and driving out demons, and he did not have a laptop, so it is hard to see where he would have had leisure to write (as a writer I can attest it takes a quiet time, place and materials to write). I feel a sense of deja vu and I am sure this question has been asked and answered before here, try a search.

You posit that Jesus didn’t write anything because it would have been tough to write with all that walking and preaching?! … and as a writer, you can attest to that?

Perhaps you forget something … Jesus is God … if he wanted to write … He could have stopped time for His quiet time!!! … and printed it using a laptop!!! Hey, He’s God - He can do anything!

 

[Tonks40]

It was customary for the Jewish people at that time to learn and memorize Scripture orally.

 

[I_Leatherman]

What did He do?, if not write a manual for us to follow.
He founded one single Church, as being better than a manual, to guide His followers in His stead.
‘…I will build My Church…’
‘…guide you to all Truth…’
‘…he who hears you hears Me…’
etc. …etc…

 

[Annunciata]

There is an account of Jesus writing in the sand…John 8:6…

 

[VociMike]

I wonder if Jesus ever wrote anything: poems or prose and so on. Didn’t He read the OT? If He did then He must have been able to write. If He was literate why didn’t Jesus write down His teachings? Some suggestions are that He was illiterate (I disagree with that theory; Jesus was a highly intelligent man).

Shouldn’t something as important as the salvation of mankind have been written down first hand? Jesus might not have wanted His words written down. Maybe He wanted His teachings to be passed on mouth to mouth and by examples of love. He might have disapproved of all the highbrow theology and reams of church doctrine. Perhaps that why there isn’t a gospel of Jesus Christ.

He didn’t write things down for us because He had a much better plan. Rather than giving us just a book, He gave us a Church.

Look around today. People (Protestants and their offshoots) who have just the book (the Bible) cannot agree on what any of the important parts mean. There are thousands of different and often contradictory teachings which they say are “found” in the Bible. But the Church teaches one and only one faith. A Book without a Church leads to confusion and disunity. A Church without a Book does just fine (the Early Church). A Church with a Book is perhaps even better, for it allows us all to experience even more fully the depth and breadth of the Truth which the Church has been entrusted to guard and to teach.

So Jesus didn’t write because He had a much better idea for us.

 

[BrianH]

No, nothing probably is intact that was written but there is a legend…
from everyone’s favorite Wikipedia

"In Christian mythology, the story of king Abgar of Edessa was an early tale of a wonder-working icon, set in the heart of the region where iconoclast tradition disapproved strongly of images in general, but which this icon-legitimizing legend connected directly with Jesus.

The legend tells that Abgar, king of Edessa, afflicted with an incurable sickness, had heard the fame of the power and miracles of Jesus and wrote to him, acknowledging his divinity, craving his help, and offering him asylum in his own residence; the tradition states that Jesus wrote a letter declining to go, but promising that after his ascension, he would send one of his disciples, endowed with his power, namely Thaddeus (called Addaï), or one of the seventy-two Disciples, called Thaddeus of Edessa.

The 4th century church historian Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, records a tradition, in his Historia Ecclesiae, I, xii or xiii, ca AD 325, concerning a correspondence on this occasion, exchanged between Abgar of Edessa and Jesus. Eusebius was convinced that the original letters, written in Syriac, were kept in the archives of Edessa. Eusebius also states that in due course, Judas, son of Thaddaeus, was sent in 29 AD. Eusebius copies the two letters into the text of his history.

The correspondence consisted of Abgar’s letter and the answer dictated by Jesus. As the legend later expanded, a portrait of Jesus painted from life began to be mentioned. This portrait, purportedly painted by the court archivist Hannan during his visit to Jesus, is first mentioned in the Syriac text called the “Doctrine of Addai” (Doctrina Addai-- Addaei, Addaeus = Thaddaeus or Thaddeus), from the second half of the 4th century. Here it is said that the reply of Jesus was given not in writing, but verbally, and that the event took place in 32 AD. This Teaching of Addai is also the earliest account of an image of Jesus painted from life, enshrined by the ailing King Abgar V in one of his palaces. Greek forms of the legend are found in the Acta Thaddaei, the “Acts of Thaddaeus”.

The story of the “letter to Abgar”, including the portrait made by the court painter Hannan, is repeated, with some additions, in the mid-5th century History of the Armenians of Moses of Chorene, who remarked that the portrait was preserved in Edessa.

The story was later elaborated further by the church historian Evagrius, bishop of Edessa (c. 536-600), who declared for the first time (as far as is known) that the image of Jesus was “divinely wrought,” and “not made by human hands.” In sum, the documented legend developed from no image in Eusebius, to an image painted by Hannan in “Addai” and Moses of Chorene, to a miraculously-appearing image not made by human hands in Evagrius."

 

[BrianH]

Look around today. People (Protestants and their offshoots) who have just the book (the Bible) cannot agree on what any of the important parts mean. There are thousands of different and often contradictory teachings which they say are “found” in the Bible. But the Church teaches one and only one faith.

But the branches of Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, and Eastern Orthodox who also rely on scripture and tradition cannot agree on the important details, unless one contends the Papacy is unimportant…
BH

 

[Liberian]

Dorothy,

There is one place where the Bible recounts Jesus writing: John 8:6,8. It was in the middle of a mob that had just caught a woman in bed with the wrong man (how the man got away is never made clear) and they are demanding of Jesus as to whether or not they should stone her. The Bible does not say what Jesus was writing–with his finger in the dust of the ground–but there is a tradition that He was writing down everybody’s sins. (I heard one Christian comic say that it was a list of the names of all the men’s mistresses.) So Jesus could most definitely write.

• Liberian

 

[ProdigalSonOfOz]

I wonder if Jesus ever wrote anything: poems or prose and so on. Didn’t He read the OT? If He did then He must have been able to write. If He was literate why didn’t Jesus write down His teachings? Some suggestions are that He was illiterate (I disagree with that theory; Jesus was a highly intelligent man).

Shouldn’t something as important as the salvation of mankind have been written down first hand? Jesus might not have wanted His words written down. Maybe He wanted His teachings to be passed on mouth to mouth and by examples of love. He might have disapproved of all the highbrow theology and reams of church doctrine. Perhaps that why there isn’t a gospel of Jesus Christ.

Dorothy, I think you’ve inadvertently stumbled across the best argument against sola scriptura I have ever heard

If Jesus wanted to put in place a church based upon “scripture alone” he would have written ALL his teachings down… Instead he chose to establish a living church based upon apostolic succession and the perpetuation of Scared Tradition.

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

I wonder if Jesus ever wrote anything: poems or prose and so on. Didn’t He read the OT? If He did then He must have been able to write. If He was literate why didn’t Jesus write down His teachings? Some suggestions are that He was illiterate (I disagree with that theory; Jesus was a highly intelligent man).

“You see these big letters?”. St Paul could write, but just barely. Not a whole epistle. You hired a scribe to do that.
Parchment was expensive in the Ancient World, and people didn’t write as we do today.
However scripture records Jesus as reading, and it is very likely that He was literate - beyond all reasonable doubt but not beyond all rational doubt, if you understand what I mean.

Shouldn’t something as important as the salvation of mankind have been written down first hand? Jesus might not have wanted His words written down. Maybe He wanted His teachings to be passed on mouth to mouth and by examples of love. He might have disapproved of all the highbrow theology and reams of church doctrine. Perhaps that why there isn’t a gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the Word, and for good reasons that is a spoken word. Jesus effected a change in world history by saying things, not by writing things down, just as the Father calls things into existence at the beginning of Genesis.

 

[LilyM]

“You see these big letters?”. St Paul could write, but just barely. Not a whole epistle. You hired a scribe to do that.
Parchment was expensive in the Ancient World, and people didn’t write as we do today.
However scripture records Jesus as reading, and it is very likely that He was literate - beyond all reasonable doubt but not beyond all rational doubt, if you understand what I mean.

Jesus is the Word, and for good reasons that is a spoken word. Jesus effected a change in world history by saying things, not by writing things down, just as the Father calls things into existence at the beginning of Genesis.

Paul had been a Pharisee - certainly a very educated and well-read man. Reading and writing usually go hand in hand, and usually did in those days too. Schoolkids were taught how with recyclable, erasable and not-too-hideously-expensive wax writing tablets.

I suspect he was simply getting older and physically frailer (perhaps his eyesight was failing?) and his handwriting was deteriorating for that reason.

 

[Sixtus]

He might have disapproved of all the highbrow theology and reams of church doctrine. Perhaps that why there isn’t a gospel of Jesus Christ.

No doubt He did write. It is most likely that anyone who can read, also write. But writing was not so easily achieved in the absence of paper and modern writing implements.

We know for a fact He wrote in the sand.

We could also argue 'did He make any artefacts of wood using His father’s tools and equipment? No doubt He did.

What appears certain is that it was not His intention that His written work or artefacts should survive. Our faith would be all too easy if there is more physical proof. It seems to me that our ‘chosing to love Him’ through faith is what He wants [and what God values], rather than a love based on absolute proven fact and certainty.