how can Jesus...

[fisherman_carl]

Jesus couldn’t read or write. The correct translation is “letters” not “scripture”.

If Jesus could read, then he would of course know scripture. That is WHY Jews learned to read back then.

Patrick, help me out here.

Of course Jesus could read.

Luke 4:16
"He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read*and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:*“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, …”

How could Jesus stand up and find a passage in Isaiah and the read it out loud otherwise.

 

[patrick457]

were are you getting that Jesus couldn’t read or write?

That whole idea that Jesus was illiterate stems from a single statement in John’s Gospel, where the people are astounded at Him (7:14-15, Young’s Literal):

And it being now the middle of the feast, Jesus went up to the temple, and he was teaching, and the Jews were wondering, saying, ‘How hath this one known letters - not having learned?’

 

[patrick457]

Personally I tend to take the meaning of the statement in John to be about not so much that whether Jesus could or could not read or write, but rather, that He was not ‘educated’; i.e. He had no formal academic training as a teacher. In other words, as an idiom rather than in a literal way. For one, how could the people have immediately ascertained Jesus’ (who is probably a total stranger) ability to read just from seeing Him standing there and hearing Him speak? Unless He actually said midway, “Oh, and by the way I can’t read” or has demonstrated that He couldn’t? And supposing that a literal sense is meant, even if the speakers did assume that Jesus was illiterate, is there an absolute guarantee that that was so?

 

[TimothyH]

Jesus couldn’t read or write. The correct translation is “letters” not “scripture”.

If Jesus could read, then he would of course know scripture. That is WHY Jews learned to read back then.

Patrick, help me out here.

My name is not Patrick, but I’ll try…

Israel had a high literacy rate at the time of Jesus. Most children were taught to read and write using the Book of Leviticus, specifically Leviticus 17 through 22 which was known as the “Holiness Code.” This served the dual purpose of teaching the children how to read and write as well as teaching them how they were expected to behave. Children were educated in the Holiness Code from an early age, and, exactly as you say, this was why they were taught to read and write. But most Jews at the time of Jesus were literate.

Even if Jesus couldn’t read, which is unlikely, he knew scripture.

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.(John 1:1)*

Jesus was the incarnate Word of God. Of course he knew scripture. He was the source of all scripture

-Tim-

 

[patrick457]

My name is not Patrick, but I’ll try…

Israel had a high literacy rate at the time of Jesus. Most children were taught to read and write using the Book of Leviticus, specifically Leviticus 17 through 22 which was known as the “Holiness Code.” This served the dual purpose of teaching the children how to read and write as well as teaching them how they were expected to behave. Children were educated in the Holiness Code from an early age, and, exactly as you say, this was why they were taught to read and write. But most Jews at the time of Jesus were literate.

Even if Jesus couldn’t read, which is unlikely, he knew scripture.

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.*(John 1:1)

Jesus was the incarnate Word of God. Of course he knew scripture. He was the source of all scripture

-Tim-

My name is Patrick, and I’ll drop a further two cents. My cents are going to run out soon if I’m not very careful.

The whole issue of literacy is an unclear and controversial one, and different people will hand out different figures. (But then again, so are a lot of other things in the 1st century!) Some such as John Dominic Crossan will argue that at the time 95 to 97 percent of the people were ‘illiterate’; the remaining percentage who was literate would have mostly been upper-class. Since Jesus was from a low-class background, He must have belonged in that majority, they say.

Philo and Josephus do talk about how children are taught Torah by their parents and how to read it (cf. De Legatione 210; Against Apion 1.60; 2.176, 178, 204), however, one could not dismiss the possibility that they were painting an idealized picture and might have had in mind upper-class homes who could afford decent education for their children. But then again, the pursuit of education was not the sole domain of the wealthy and the professional: it could very well be that Philo and Josephus do get something right. For the moment I’d recommend the article Context, Family and Formation by Craig A. Evans in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus edited by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl (2001) and in An Outline of the Life and Mission of Jesus, b. Upbringing and Education in Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn. Maurice Casey in Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching (p. 158-159 ff.) meawhile offers a critique of Crossan’s figures.

For the record, learning to read is a separate skill from learning how to write. Children nowadays learn how to read AND write as a set, but in the ancient world, there are people who can read but can’t write, and people who can mimic letters without understanding what they are writing. So even if we grant that Jesus can read (His actuall skill notwithstanding), it’s a different question about whether He can write.

 

[TimothyH]

My name is Patrick, and I’ll drop a further two cents. My cents are going to run out soon if I’m not very careful.

The whole issue of literacy is an unclear and controversial one, and different people will hand out different figures. (But then again, so are a lot of other things in the 1st century!) Some such as John Dominic Crossan will argue that at the time 95 to 97 percent of the people were ‘illiterate’; the remaining percentage who was literate would have mostly been upper-class. Since Jesus was from a low-class background, He must have belonged in that majority, they say.

Philo and Josephus do talk about how children are taught Torah by their parents and how to read it (cf. De Legatione 210; Against Apion 1.60; 2.176, 178, 204), however, one could not dismiss the possibility that they were painting an idealized picture and might have had in mind upper-class homes who could afford decent education for their children. But then again, the pursuit of education was not the sole domain of the wealthy and the professional: it could very well be that Philo and Josephus do get something right. For the moment I’d recommend the article Context, Family and Formation by Craig A. Evans in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus edited by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl (2001) and in An Outline of the Life and Mission of Jesus, b. Upbringing and Education in Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn. Maurice Casey in Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching (p. 158-159 ff.) meawhile offers a critique of Crossan’s figures.

For the record, learning to read is a separate skill from learning how to write. Children nowadays learn how to read AND write as a set, but in the ancient world, there are people who can read but can’t write, and people who can mimic letters without understanding what they are writing. So even if we grant that Jesus can read (His actuall skill notwithstanding), it’s a different question about whether He can write.

Note that my comments re literacy rate are based off of Jeff Cavins comments in one of his bible studies.

As usual Patrick, another excellent and educational post. You are a blessing to these forums. And as usual, things are not a black and white as they seem.

-Tim-

 

[steve53]

Note that my comments re literacy rate are based off of Jeff Cavins comments in one of his bible studies.

As usual Patrick, another excellent and educational post. You are a blessing to these forums. And as usual, things are not a black and white as they seem.

-Tim-

With questionable parentage, being of poor status, and spending his early years in Egypt as a refugee, if any young male Jew in the Galilee would not have been taught how to read or write, it would have been Jesus.

 

[DaveBj]

snip

So even if we grant that Jesus can read (His actuall skill notwithstanding), it’s a different question about whether He can write.

I think that question has been answered in John 8:6-8.

Why are we even having this discussion? This is JESUS we’re talking about!!!

 

[TimothyH]

With questionable parentage, being of poor status, and spending his early years in Egypt as a refugee, if any young male Jew in the Galilee would not have been taught how to read or write, it would have been Jesus.

And that young, male, Jew was the Second Person of the Trinity, through whom the universe was created.

No one taught him to walk on water. Maybe his ability to read was a miracle, and you just discovered it. :thumbsup:

-Tim-

 

[Mintaka]

In Eastern Europe and in most places in the world with observant Jews, most young Jewish boys learned to read and speak at least a little Hebrew, even where they were poor as dirt. So did many Jewish girls, though not as many. In Jewish communities in the 19th century, being a normal schoolteacher was a very low status job, because Jews thought that just about anybody could teach somebody to read and write and do math. A very easy job that didn’t require much smarts or hard work, they thought. The sort of job a young man took until he could get a real job, or made enough money to finish rabbi school.

There’s no particular reason not to believe that Jesus learned to read, given that Joseph was supposed to be “righteous,” that Mary could quote Scripture off the cuff, and that they both were related to fairly high status lines of kinship. The House of David was descended from a poet-king, not a bookhater.

Joseph was a businessman, what’s more, and there’s no reason to think that he wouldn’t have needed business records to deal with Roman and native taxation, as well as his own accounts.

Reading and writing is the kind of skill that truly is easy to teach and carry with you. What do you need to learn it? The dust is your blackboard and a stick is your pen. You can use a rock for your blackboard and charcoal from your fire for your pencil. It’s not rocket science, people.

Beyond that, it’s a bit insulting to think that the Word, Who arranged for His chosen people to have written Scriptures in the first place and set many bits of wordplay in the Bible that need writing to understand (like the abecedary poems), wouldn’t care enough for His own Mother and Foster-father to make sure they learned how to read and write.

The Jewish custom when a child first starts to learn letters is to give him honey, to teach him that learning is sweet. The same thing used to be the custom in some Catholic communities, right after the Sacraments of First Communion and Matrimony. I think it’s fair to say that this marks out something important to each community.

 

[patrick457]

In Eastern Europe and in most places in the world with observant Jews, most young Jewish boys learned to read and speak at least a little Hebrew, even where they were poor as dirt. So did many Jewish girls, though not as many. In Jewish communities in the 19th century, being a normal schoolteacher was a very low status job, because Jews thought that just about anybody could teach somebody to read and write and do math. A very easy job that didn’t require much smarts or hard work, they thought. The sort of job a young man took until he could get a real job, or made enough money to finish rabbi school.

There’s no particular reason not to believe that Jesus learned to read, given that Joseph was supposed to be “righteous,” that Mary could quote Scripture off the cuff, and that they both were related to fairly high status lines of kinship. The House of David was descended from a poet-king, not a bookhater.

Joseph was a businessman, what’s more, and there’s no reason to think that he wouldn’t have needed business records to deal with Roman and native taxation, as well as his own accounts.

Reading and writing is the kind of skill that truly is easy to teach and carry with you. What do you need to learn it? The dust is your blackboard and a stick is your pen. You can use a rock for your blackboard and charcoal from your fire for your pencil. It’s not rocket science, people.

Beyond that, it’s a bit insulting to think that the Word, Who arranged for His chosen people to have written Scriptures in the first place and set many bits of wordplay in the Bible that need writing to understand (like the abecedary poems), wouldn’t care enough for His own Mother and Foster-father to make sure they learned how to read and write.

True, but one shouldn’t underestimate the power of the human memory. Even people who could not read apparently knew the Law by heart, after hearing it from their parents and from teachers in the synagogues: after all, it was the whole story of their race! When cultures depend mainly on oral traditions, as did that of Jesus, one can achieve a high level of sophistication without being (fully) literate.

The Jewish custom when a child first starts to learn letters is to give him honey, to teach him that learning is sweet. The same thing used to be the custom in some Catholic communities, right after the Sacraments of First Communion and Matrimony. I think it’s fair to say that this marks out something important to each community.

Actually it involved smearing honey over the child’s alphabet tablet for him to lick. And it apparently happened during a ceremony when the child first begins Torah study outside of the home. Granted, we only begin to hear of this practice a little later in history so it is hard to say whether this custom already existed in the time of Jesus.

 

[steve53]

This is the worst type of scholarship- taking Jewish traditions of Eastern Europe and extending them to early Christian times.

 

[puzzleannie]

the literacy issue and the rabbi issue are not germaine to OP’s question

all adult Jewish males may read the scripture portion in the synagogue
that is what bar mitvah celebrates, when the boy becomes a man he is called to the Torah, that is called to study and proclaim the scripture. Whether or not the ritual as it is practiced today existed in the 1st century, the rule certainly did, that all Jewish males are called to read and interpret scripture

 

[steve53]

the literacy issue and the rabbi issue are not germaine to OP’s question

all adult Jewish males may read the scripture portion in the synagogue
that is what bar mitvah celebrates, when the boy becomes a man he is called to the Torah, that is called to study and proclaim the scripture. Whether or not the ritual as it is practiced today existed in the 1st century, the rule certainly did, that all Jewish males are called to read and interpret scripture

in first century Judaism?

Nonsense. Show me a contemporaneous source. Any male then could stand up and speak their peace, but they didn’t have to read.

 

[patrick457]

Ben Witherington had apparently recently put up a series of blog posts relevant to this topic. You may not agree with him, but it is interesting nevertheless.

Reading and Writing in Herodian Israel– Was Jesus an Illiterate Peasant? Part One

Reading and Writing in Jesus’ World— Was he an Illiterate Peasant? Part Two

Was Jesus Illiterate? Part Three

Books and Scrolls in the World of Jesus

 

[patrick457]

I think that question has been answered in John 8:6-8.

Why are we even having this discussion? This is JESUS we’re talking about!!!

Leaving aside the rather complicated textual history of the Pericope Adulterae, I personally don’t think that the passage about Jesus ‘writing’ in the dirt is a strong enough evidence for His ability to write (in His humanity that is). For one we are never told what He was writing: there have been speculations such as Him writing the sins of the woman’s accusers and so on, but for all we know, Jesus could have been ‘drawing’ lines in imitation of writing. In other words, He was more making a gesture rather than writing anything meanful.

Which brings us to this. I’ve seen an interpretation which focuses more not on WHAT Jesus wrote (whatever it really was), but His act of writing itself. Notice: He writes on the dirt with His finger. Could this be an allusion to the Law, written on stone by the finger of God? So in effect, Jesus could have been gesturing to the accusers, “I am the author of the Law; how could I possibly break it?”

 

[steve53]

Interesting post.

Jesus making figures in the sand has always been a puzzling argument for his ability to read and write. Who writes in the sand, anyway? An ox cart goes by, or a couple of kids start to horse around and you’ve lost it. What’s the point of writing down great thoughts in the sand?

And if Jesus was literate, or even thought it was important to write things down, he would have had a scribe with him at all times, to write down his pithy thoughts for future generations. But he didn’t.

What was he doing in the sand? Well, he was a carpenter. It could have been as simple as him making a design of a structure, or a plan of a house. Why not? Or just adding up numbers for some reason, keeping track of some mundane everyday thing.

Or he might have had a connection with the Pythagoreans, and was drawing geometric figures in the sand. Don’t need to read and write for that.

God made man in his own image, but that was God.

Don’t make Jesus in YOUR image.