Were the apostles illiterate?

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It seems to me that the Jews during the time of Our Lord and the apostles, observant Jews saw to it that their male children could read so they would be able to read the sacred scriptures.

Also; did they have the bar mitzvah then? A young man would be required to read from the Torah for this ceremony, right?

This query is prompted from a book I browsed while at the library today (Atheist answers to Christian Fundamentalists or something close to that). The book throws out assertions, then does not, IMO, give enough information to back up the assertions.

One was that “we know that Jesus didn’t exist because none of the writers during the time he lived mention him”, and then goes on to list Josephus, Justin Martyr and some others. But they lived decades after Jesus lived, so they don’t count. Guess they forgot about John (who wrote Revelation). It’s shoddy writing like this that can pull those weak in faith and in knowledge of their religion away from really digging into those important issues. Well, unless they are like me!

Thanks in advance for all answers. I would particularly appreciate titles of books or reliable internet sites for more info.

Mimi
 
Although I am too far to know a lot about this theme, I think some of the apostles were well educated people, Luke was a doctor, Simon (Peter) another one was a tax collector, they for sure were not, but if there are the letters from Paul and Peter to different groups they were people who kne how to write and read I don’t remember about the rest…maybe someone can come up with more accurate answers
 
If the apostles were illeterate, then it wouldn’t matter a great deal anyways. Considering how the faith was spread before the New Testament came into existence, orally. This is where the apostolic tradition comes from. Mark’s gosple was written by St. Mark, but he was a disciple of Peter. Mark penned down the gosple, according to Peter’s account of what he witnessed with the Lord. We can safely assume that Peter and his fishermen companions were illeterate, but those who were their disciples were not. Matthew, since he was a tax collector must have been an educated man since his profession required arithmetic and grammar.
 
i’m not an expert on this, but this is what i have learned from various sources and i hope they are right

in those times, the Jews were very big on memorization. they were excellent in such that when they were exiled to Babylon, they were not able to bring their big and heavy scrolls with them, so they memorized the text. upon their return, they compared what they have memorized and with whats in the scrolls and it turns out they are about 95% accurate

this would continue even during the time of Jesus. those who are interested would sit down with the teachers and would learn about scripture. they would take this to heart. if they needed to “read” scripture, they can recall it from memory.

this is also how the story of Jesus was carried until the New Testament was written. and the reason why the Gospels were written some 20-30 years after the Ascension was that the Jewish converts never demanded any written text for their reading. it was the Greek Gentile converts who were more educated and had more affinity with books that wanted something to read. so the accounts and the teachings were written down.

its highly probably that the fishermen were illiterate, Peter among others. John was young enough so he was able to learn to write later on. it is believed that Mark writes for Peter. Matthew was a tax collector, so he definitely knows how to write.
 
The Apostles weren’t illiterate because they could read the scripture. I know Simon Peter and his brother Andrew for example were fishermen but they could read the scripture. The Apostle Paul wrote most of his letters (letters of Paul to the Corinthians for example) because he was a very educated man.
 
Mimi said:
This query is prompted from a book I browsed while at the library today (Atheist answers to Christian Fundamentalists or something close to that). The book throws out assertions, then does not, IMO, give enough information to back up the assertions.

One was that “we know that Jesus didn’t exist because none of the writers during the time he lived mention him”, and then goes on to list Josephus, Justin Martyr and some others. But they lived decades after Jesus lived, so they don’t count.

Mimi
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Well, anything on Justin Martyr, for one thing. They actually say that Justin Martyr didn’t mention Christ? And they didn’t even notice the “martyr” part? :eek: That’s such shoddy “scholarship” that it doesn’t even deserve a response!
 
Gloria1 said:
The Apostles weren’t illiterate because they could read the scripture. I know Simon Peter and his brother Andrew for example were fishermen but they could read the scripture. The Apostle Paul wrote most of his letters (letters of Paul to the Corinthians for example) because he was a very educated man.
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Faithful Jewish men would have been educated as children in order to proclaim the Scripture in the synagogue, yes. That does not, of course, mean that they could write, which was a totally separate skill and one that was a whole industry unto itself (scribe).

Oral transmission of history, literature and other knowledge was the way of the world in ancient time. It is not surprising that the apostles, who anticipated an early return of Jesus, concentrated on the oral proclamation of the gospel, nor is it surprising that their listeners and followers should have begun to commit that proclamation to writing as the eyewitnesses began to die off.

Anyone who suggests that ancient documentation is not trustworthy because it does not meet the standards of the modern world is simply ignorant. (And anyone who suggests that the nearly synchronous recording of events that we now consider routine guarantees the record is trustworthy is simply not paying attention . . . )
 
NHInsider said:
Faithful Jewish men would have been educated as children in order to proclaim the Scripture in the synagogue, yes.
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The Twelve were illiterate Jewish peasants with limited to no capabiliy to read or write. The best specific work on ancient literacy in the Jewish homeland concludes about a 3% literacy rate. Literacy was the prerogative of elite aristocrats, trained retainers, and scribal experts. The only “faithful Jewish men” who would have been educated to any degree well-enough to be able to read Scripture were the Pharisees, who were wealthy enough and situated in urban settings with enough support and leisure to read and write. The peasantry, by contrast, had little time to learn how to read and write since they were primarily involved with working the land, paying taxes and surviving harsh winters and extreme droughts.

Thus, given that first-century Galilee was comprised of mostly peasants in an agrarian society (where landless and/or younger sons tried to eke out a living as craftsment or fishermen), there is neither statistically nor historically any good reason to suppose the apostles, other than Paul, were literate.
 
For all its flaws the movement known as 'The Quest for the Historical Jesus" actually has a reasonable motive: “What can we know through the light of reason alone, about Jesus?” It has been practiced wrongly, but this is a good question to ask, as it does have apologetic value. Through reason alone, we do know:
  • Jesus existed. this is attested to by Josephus, the Talmud of Babylon, and Tacitus. Keep in mind these sources are not sympathetic to Christianity.
  • He was executed in Jerusalem.
  • He did something to annoy the authorities. It would be highly irregular for the Roman government to execute someone out of spite.
  • He worked wonders. He was even accused of sorcery in the aforemetioned Talmud.
  • He was a teacher.
  • His followers claimed that he rose from the grave. It should be noted that through reason alone we cannot attest that He in fact did rise from the grave, only that his followers made that claim.
  • This claim of resurrection predates the Gospels aand the writings of St. Paul.
These are all historical facts which really can’t be disputed. To deny them would lead me to conclude that the doubter is not rational.
 
Epistemes said:
The Twelve were illiterate Jewish peasants with limited to no capabiliy to read or write. The best specific work on ancient literacy in the Jewish homeland concludes about a 3% literacy rate. Literacy was the prerogative of elite aristocrats, trained retainers, and scribal experts. The only “faithful Jewish men” who would have been educated to any degree well-enough to be able to read Scripture were the Pharisees, who were wealthy enough and situated in urban settings with enough support and leisure to read and write. The peasantry, by contrast, had little time to learn how to read and write since they were primarily involved with working the land, paying taxes and surviving harsh winters and extreme droughts.

Thus, given that first-century Galilee was comprised of mostly peasants in an agrarian society (where landless and/or younger sons tried to eke out a living as craftsment or fishermen), there is neither statistically nor historically any good reason to suppose the apostles, other than Paul, were literate.
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They were literate. Simon, Andrew, James, and John were fishermen in Galilee, and as a result were probably fairly wealthy. Matthew (also called Levi) was a tax collector, and therefore educated and in the elite. Jesus himself was raised in the home of a carpenter, yet he could read. My guess is that you are underestimating the literacy rate among Jewish males in 1st century Palestine.
 
CWBetts said:
They were literate. Simon, Andrew, James, and John were fishermen in Galilee, and as a result were probably fairly wealthy. Matthew (also called Levi) was a tax collector, and therefore educated and in the elite. Jesus himself was raised in the home of a carpenter, yet he could read. My guess is that you are underestimating the literacy rate among Jewish males in 1st century Palestine.
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Perhaps Jesus, in preperation for his mission, taught himself to read?
 
Marc_Anthony said:
Perhaps Jesus, in preperation for his mission, taught himself to read?
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That is a possibility as well. I was actually loathe to bring up Jesus, because it could be explained that Jesus is a notable exception, but I stand by my conclusions about the others.
 
Mimi said:
One was that “we know that Jesus didn’t exist because none of the writers during the time he lived mention him”
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I presume that the criticism here means that the writings dating from the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry do not tell of him. But Jesus’ earthly ministry lasted three years and we can assume that no one would have had a reason to write about Jesus prior to these last three years of his time on earth. In other words, the critics want to see ancient text written from around A.D. 30 - 33 mentioning Jesus. But I would like to know just how much written material from that tight time frame even exists. In other words, if we don’t even have any ancient texts from A.D. 30-33 to begin with, then it seems strange to make an argument against the existence of Jesus because “none of the writers during the time he lived mention him.”

Now, we can certainly say that Jesus was mentioned shortly after his earthly ministry came to an end. The critics make a common mistake in thinking that the earliest written account of a belief is likewise the origin of the belief. Many books of the Bible, including the gospels, were passed down in an oral tradition before they were set into writing. Scholars know this because various techniques were used in the oral format to assist in memorization, and these “gimmics” were preserved when the words were finally put into writing. Therefore, the gospels were being orally taught and shared immediately after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, even if they were not actually committed to writing until several years later.

Consider, for example, the speech that Peter gave which is recorded in Acts 10:34-43. Herein he gives what was initially an oral account of a brief version of the gospel. It is even thought that Mark used this speech as an outline for his own gospel. These kinds of speeches were given by Christians from the beginning, long before any of the New Testament was put into a written format.
 
I am not going to answer the question directly but I have written a short piece which may have a bearing with this question. My ‘short piece’ is actually a short article which I was not able to have published. I am sending this in three bunches so please bear with me:

WHY DID JESUS NOT WRITE?

Knowing that the New Testament is all about Jesus and His teachings, an intriguing question some-times crosses one’s mind: Why did Jesus not leave humanity something of His very own writing?

It would have been awe inspiring to have an extant writing by Jesus Himself: A sort of an autobio-graphy perhaps; or a compendium of His teachings. Maybe something as short as the Gospel would have done a tremendous amount of good. It would have dispelled many troubles due to inconsisten-cies and other human errors.

Instead, Jesus never left us even a single page of writing. The only time that he was recorded to have written was when a condemned adulterous woman was brought to Him. And He wrote on the sand!

Not only did Jesus neglect to write, by surrounding himself with people who were either illiterate or at most, with not so high level of literacy, he seemed to have shunned away from the company of people who might be smart enough to take down in writing his words – verbatim!

Indeed, in all the New Testament, Jesus did not even command His apostles and disciples to spread His Gospel through the written words.

As a result of this seeming indifference of Jesus towards the written words, the New Testament took a few hundreds of years to take shape. All the accounts about Jesus there were taken from the memories of the writers many years after the event.

Modern scholars peering into the microscopic details of how the books of the New Testament were written, who wrote them, and what sense can they make of them, could only produce conflicting and bewildering findings. Thousands of books and thousands of Ph D degrees have been awarded just to find out the many questions regarding authorship, date of writing, meanings, ambiguities and many other details about the New Testament.

Why did Jesus NOT write at all? Great personalities in His time and long before, with few excep-tions, took pains to write. It is but natural for people who think that they have something to say, to perpetuate their ideas through the written words. This would enable them to encapsulate their ideas in the most precise way –and keep them for posterity. And Jesus did have earth-shaking ideas for the human race! In all the three years of His ministry, He never tired of meeting people -in large or small groups, to proclaim His gospel.

More than any other great men and great thinkers of history, Jesus did intend to have his teachings and memory preserved in history. More than that he intended his teachings to be known and ob-served through all the nations in the world, for He was concerned not just of the truth but He claimed to be the Truth. At least this is what we get from the New Testament. Humanly speaking he failed to meet the requirement for this to happen- a written document – by His own hand or at least taken directly from His mouth. The paradox is: judging at how Christianity has flourished through the century, Jesus did carry out His mission far more successfully than any other human beings in history!
 
WHY JESUS DID NOT WRITE (cont.)
Still the question lingers: For a person exposed to the reading of scrolls during religious services, this glaring omission of Jesus is strange indeed.

Why?

It occurs to me that pondering upon this question is worthwhile because it gives one a glimpse of Jesus’ intention. Why this piece of negative information has not been explored by more worthy in-dividuals, is a puzzle to me because it seems to be loaded with significant implications.

Firstly, without doubt, this act of omission was deliberate.

Allow me to suggest the following reasons:
  1. I contend that this omission on the part of Jesus is consistent with His claim of Divinity. Jesus was much aware of the limitations of human language. Being One who came from heaven and who is Heaven Himself how can His ideas be expressed in human language? What would have happened if He wrote His teachings? The imperfect human language could not adequately express his mes-sage, perfect as they are. It would be similar to explaining a modern concept of science using the primitive language of the time; or recording a great symphony in a recorder directly taken from the shop of Edison. It would be putting new wine in an old wineskin as our Lord put it.
In other words, the ideas that he would want to convey by the use of human language would not come out exactly as He meant it. Perhaps, in order for us not to miss His meaning, He must explain each teaching in many different ways as He was doing it by many different parables. This must have been what St. John the Evangelist meant when He wrote that the whole world couldn’t contain the book if all that Jesus did were written there.

Our experience with the Holy Scripture shows that had Jesus written his own message, it would have made matters worse -not better. Without understanding, people would cling to it –with their varied interpretation of the texts or verses. Various clusters would strongly crystallize around vari-ous interpretations like grains of salt – but with no unifying super-crystal. They would divine mean-ings to verses, words and even letters where the meaning is not intended. He must have anticipated that such a book would divide His followers instead of uniting them.

Each pronouncement in Jesus’ book would overwhelm all other human opinions and discoveries –even when the pronouncement is not properly understood.

The book would evoke such awe and reverence that its original version must be zealously preserved. It would be made a required reading in the original version so that each Christian must learn the language in which it is written as if the imperfect human language has perfectly expressed the divine message that it carries.

The book may even be idolized or worshipped by some.

Having speculated on this issue, we come to appreciate the person of Jesus better. We see that
 
WHY JESUS DID NOT WRITE (cont.)

far more important than His teachings is His person. Marshall Mcluhan’s widely quoted statement is much more appropriate in Jesus’ case than in the context that he intended, that “The medium is the message.”
  1. Jesus’ way of conveying His entire Message to the human race through time and space seems silly if He were just human. But seen in the development of His body of followers in the course of history, it is, in fact, breathtaking and shows not just genius but divine mastery. Rather than putting it in the form of a written document, he left His message under the charge of 12 people, who were not philosophers, nor lawyers, nor priests, nor scribes, nor statesmen but 12 nobodies. That is why, done by anybody else, the action was downright silly. If the most perceptive person on earth were present to take note of Jesus’ career, he would not be able to make sense of it. So what if Jesus re-surrected? After he was gone, in time, his memory would vaporize with him and would take its place among the legends and myths. The perceptive person would probably conclude that Jesus’ greatness would not be able to stand side by side with Plato’s or Aristotle’s or Socrates’.
Perhaps Jesus’ parable of the Kingdom of God being like a mustard seed that grew to become a large tree should be taken more literally to mean that it is really alive. It is a new creation far differ-ent from any that has ever been known. Although it is made up of individual human beings, it is far different from any organized body of men. This is because unlike other organizations, it has a mind of its own and it would never disintegrate.

And just as the creator blew the Spirit into the nostrils of Adam to start his life, so did Jesus blow the Holy Spirit into this new creation to start its life.

It is undeniable that this entity, which Jesus gave birth two thousand years ago, is still growing not just in size but also in wisdom and knowledge about itself and about the world. It has developed its own way of worship. It has grown in its capability to serve humanity. For this it has acquired pieces of land for its schools, orphanages, houses of charity, hospitals, convents and monasteries. It has compiled its own official textbook –the Holy Scripture. It even has its own small territory just enough for it to conduct its function without outside interference. It was able to overcome many serious external threats to its existence. But more astounding is that it survived the more serious threats that were internal –coming from the weaknesses of its own human members.

Jesus is right. He could not entrust the fullness of his teaching to the imperfect language of men. But entrusting it to a group of men who could think and reason and develop in understanding and be guided by the Holy Spirit, he ensured that his message could be made to interact even with the constantly changing situations of the world. (For instance, what is Jesus’ mind about cloning or in-vitro fertilization?) It was a choice that only a Divine person could make.

It may sound triumphalistic but it is hard to escape the observation that Jesus’ Church is the apex of God’s creation. This verse in Luke 2:40 may also be true of his Church: “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”
 
Remember two things

First Jesus chose ordinary men not scholars so that people would know that the teachings were from Jesus and not any other teacher.

Secondly he wanted his apostles to be humble to allow the holy spirit to work through them and not do it on their own.

like many of theses questions the question it self is a trick question. The miracle at Pentecost profoundly changed the life of the apostles giving them ability to many things they previously could not do. With god all things are possible.
 
Of course, most of them were illiterate. One glaring fact, not being said in the replies is that only 5 of the true apostles wrote anything. Paul who was not an apostle (he was a successor to the apostles as many others were) perhaps wrote for others and those were the ones who stayed in Paul’s vicinity. The others traveled afar spreading the oral word.

There is a book “How the Bible Began”. It tells of the letters being sent back and forth with questions and answers from the apostles because the faith was mushrooming and teaching had to be done by successors who had questions. They must have had to learn to read and write. The monks realized there was much information that should be kept, in those letters, and the bible began. The monastaries were ravaged from time to time by the pagans and some of the letters were probably lost then. We have in print only a very small part of what was taught of our religion. There are writings by the successors, one of which is 3 books entitled Faith of the Fathers by Jurgens. I call them the 2nd bible and the writings are much more clear than the bible. They tell explicitly about infant baptism, the eucharist etc… I don’t know why our Bishops don’t make it mandatory reading in schools.

Most people were illiterate in those days. Why write if no one could read it?

Look what putting the bible - or what we call the bible - in writing has done. We have 30,000+ interuptations of it. It also had to be changed into many different languages which even today is being questioned.

Jesus didn’t tell the apostles to go write. He told them to go teach. We have successors of the apostles right today with us - they are called bishops and priests.
 
liebee said:
Of course, most of them were illiterate. One glaring fact, not being said in the replies is that only 5 of the true apostles wrote anything. Paul who was not an apostle (he was a successor to the apostles as many others were) perhaps wrote for others and those were the ones who stayed in Paul’s vicinity. The others traveled afar spreading the oral word.

There is a book “How the Bible Began”. It tells of the letters being sent back and forth with questions and answers from the apostles because the faith was mushrooming and teaching had to be done by successors who had questions. They must have had to learn to read and write. The monks realized there was much information that should be kept, in those letters, and the bible began. The monastaries were ravaged from time to time by the pagans and some of the letters were probably lost then. We have in print only a very small part of what was taught of our religion. There are writings by the successors, one of which is 3 books entitled Faith of the Fathers by Jurgens. I call them the 2nd bible and the writings are much more clear than the bible. They tell explicitly about infant baptism, the eucharist etc… I don’t know why our Bishops don’t make it mandatory reading in schools.

Most people were illiterate in those days. Why write if no one could read it?

Look what putting the bible - or what we call the bible - in writing has done. We have 30,000+ interuptations of it. It also had to be changed into many different languages which even today is being questioned.

Jesus didn’t tell the apostles to go write. He told them to go teach. We have successors of the apostles right today with us - they are called bishops and priests.
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Paul was an Apostle. He identifies himself as such (just open to his epistles, and many of the greetings he opens with Paul, called to be an apostle…) At the very least Peter, John, James the lesser, Matthew, and probably James son of Zebedee and Andrew could write.
 
Epistemes said:
The Twelve were illiterate Jewish peasants with limited to no capabiliy to read or write. The best specific work on ancient literacy in the Jewish homeland concludes about a 3% literacy rate. Literacy was the prerogative of elite aristocrats, trained retainers, and scribal experts. The only “faithful Jewish men” who would have been educated to any degree well-enough to be able to read Scripture were the Pharisees, who were wealthy enough and situated in urban settings with enough support and leisure to read and write. The peasantry, by contrast, had little time to learn how to read and write since they were primarily involved with working the land, paying taxes and surviving harsh winters and extreme droughts.

Thus, given that first-century Galilee was comprised of mostly peasants in an agrarian society (where landless and/or younger sons tried to eke out a living as craftsment or fishermen), there is neither statistically nor historically any good reason to suppose the apostles, other than Paul, were literate.
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In order to have a synagogue service, you had to have a quorum of ten men who could read the Torah - because that’s what a synagogue service was. When Jesus goes into the synagogue and they hand Him the scroll and He reads the passage from Isaiah, He is doing precisely what Jewish men - even rural peasant Jewish men - did on the Sabbath (Luke 4:16).

Now that doesn’t mean they were functionally literate, much less Hebrew scholars. To this day every kid who makes his Bar Mitzvah (and girls who make Bat Mitzvah in the Reformed synagogues) can read enough Hebrew to get through their assigned passage on the day. Doesn’t mean they can read fluently or study in Hebrew. Or write it. The Apostes, of course, would have had a better comprehension than today’s 12 year olds because Hebrew was still in fairly common use in Israel in that era and Aramaic is a closely-related language. Not to mention that Hebrew has continued to evolve, so that a speaker of modern Hebrew is probably about as comfortable with Biblical Hebrew as a speaker of modern English is with Chaucer.

Paul is a completely other case, an highly educated bi-cultural scholar with dual-citizenship (Jewish because if your mom is Jewish, you’re Jewish, Roman because the Romans were patrilineal . . .) who could argue in both Hebrew and Roman law and knew the Greek philosophers - and an Apostle, as he himself said, “born out of time” but to whom the Lord had appeared, in order to use his unique gifts for the spread of the gospel.
 
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