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CWBetts
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Thank you for providing a source!
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PAboy57
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very interesting comments and i enjoyed reading them.
it would seem to me that after the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and Paul went through whatever learning process he had, they could do just about anything they needed to do?
if they weren’t so smart they became very smart and remembered everything Jesus had told them, etc. if they couldn’t write and there was a need for them to write, God gave them that ability. i’ve heard it said that Peter wasn’t that bright but the speech on Pentecost was not from a dummy?
there are gaps and i think it’s that way to force man to use free will and make a choice. we are given what we need to have to determine whether we have Faith. a very important choice that determines your eternity.
simply 2 cents worth. take care everyone.
it would seem to me that after the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and Paul went through whatever learning process he had, they could do just about anything they needed to do?
if they weren’t so smart they became very smart and remembered everything Jesus had told them, etc. if they couldn’t write and there was a need for them to write, God gave them that ability. i’ve heard it said that Peter wasn’t that bright but the speech on Pentecost was not from a dummy?
there are gaps and i think it’s that way to force man to use free will and make a choice. we are given what we need to have to determine whether we have Faith. a very important choice that determines your eternity.
simply 2 cents worth. take care everyone.
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twinc
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Lets just go back to Acts.4:13 and Jn.7:15 and what was written on the cross was read out by those who could read to those who could not but enquired"what’s written on there" etc - twinc
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CWBetts
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You are making alot odf suppostitions to cling to your “all the Apostles were illiterate” fantasy
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EdwinAbel
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patrick457
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As for the placard posted on Jesus’ cross, that doesn’t really say anything about anyone’s literacy
:And Pilate also wrote a title and put on the cross; and it was written: “Jesus the Nazorean, the king of the Judeans.” This title, therefore, read many of the Judeans, for near was the place where Jesus was crucified to the city, and it was having been written in Hebrew, in Roman, in Greek.
Basically, the meaning of agrammatoi (‘unlettered’) in Acts 4:13 is not so much that they could not read or write, but rather, that Peter and John were ‘not formally educated’; i.e. they had no formal rabbinic training. Moreover, the council would not have immediately known from the brief verbal exchange whether these men could read or write, nor was that the focus of their amazement. The source of their amazement rather is that they, who were not formally trained teachers, could hold their own in argument with some of the experts of the nation.
As for John 7:15. If we would take the statement by the Judeans about Jesus that “How does this man know letters, having never learned?” We would then have to go down the route of some and say that Luke’s account of Jesus reading from Isaiah must not have happened (after all, how could Jesus read if He “didn’t know any letters”?
). If so, then it would seem that Scripture is lying and contradicting itself! 
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twinc
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who said all the Apostles were illiterate - so again lets just go back to Acts.4:13 and Jn.7:15 - twinc
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Epistemes
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Catherine Hezser in Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (Tubingen, 2001) estimates a 3% literacy rate in Jewish Palestine. Of course, we should distinguish various levels of literacy: (a) complete illiteracy; (b) signature literacy (the ability to write or read one’s signature); (c) craft literacy (the ability to read simple instructions relating to one’s craft); (d) administrative literacy (the ability to compose documents with standard forms and formulae such as lists, accounts, leases, wills, marriage agreements (or ketubahs)); and (e) full literacy – or, the ability to compose and read complex literary texts. According to Hezser and William V Harris (Ancient Literacy, Cambridge, 1989), full literacy was likely found only in the highest levels of society and probably represented only 1% of the population.As for the placard posted on Jesus’ cross, that doesn’t really say anything about anyone’s literacy
And Pilate also wrote a title and put on the cross; and it was written: “Jesus the Nazorean, the king of the Judeans.” This title, therefore, read many of the Judeans, for near was the place where Jesus was crucified to the city, and it was having been written in Hebrew, in Roman, in Greek.
Basically, the meaning of agrammatoi (‘unlettered’) in Acts 4:13 is not so much that they could not read or write, but rather, that Peter and John were ‘not formally educated’; i.e. they had no formal rabbinic training. Moreover, the council would not have immediately known from the brief verbal exchange whether these men could read or write, nor was that the focus of their amazement. The source of their amazement rather is that they, who were not formally trained teachers, could hold their own in argument with some of the experts of the nation.
As for John 7:15. If we would take the statement by the Judeans about Jesus that “How does this man know letters, having never learned?” We would then have to go down the route of some and say that Luke’s account of Jesus reading from Isaiah must not have happened (after all, how could Jesus read if He “didn’t know any letters”?
It is not coincidental, then, that *agrammatos *forms the root basis of agrammatism, a mental condition rendering coherent grammatical speech extremely difficult, if possible at all. Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon’s entry for agrammatos states:
without learning (grammata), unlettered, Lat. illiteratus, esp. unable to read or write. II. = agraphos, unwritten.
Furthermore, even though there may be some ambiguity regarding the application of the word in antiquity, Harris states in his book that:
Within the context of Acts 4:13, there is absolutely no concern that the two emissaries are, to borrow from Seneca, uncultivated. Given such, for John and Peter to be rendered by the evangelist Luke as “agrammatoi” would characterize their literacy as either a, **b **or c.
And in regards to Luke 4:16-30 (Rejection at Nazareth), the incident is clearly created by the evangelist Luke in order to retroject the serious and even lethal opposition to Paul in the later Diaspora (Acts 13:14-52; 17:1-9) onto the earlier experience of Jesus in the Jewish homeland. To this extent, we should not understand the incident as history from Jesus’ past (for, historically, archaeologists have been unable to uncover neither synagogue construction from the first-century nor nearby cliff, not to mention that scrolls were mostly an urban privelege and would not have been found in Jesus’ tiny agrarian homeplace) but as parable for Paul’s future in the early 50s. Luke is not telling a lie, but the incident serves a literary construct and programmatic overture for later events.
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NHInsider
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I’m not a literalist, but even if I were - just because critics of Jesus SAID He was uneducated doesn’t necessarily mean that He was. So that wouldn’t necessarily be a contradiction. (That is, if I quote someone who is lying or mistaken, it doesn’t make my text wrong - it still accurately reflects what they said. . . )If we would take the statement by the Judeans about Jesus that “How does this man know letters, having never learned?” We would then have to go down the route of some and say that Luke’s account of Jesus reading from Isaiah must not have happened (after all, how could Jesus read if He “didn’t know any letters”?
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patrick457
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Somehow I knew this’d come up.
Well, first of all, you’re correct that as of now, there are still no remains of a synagogue building found in Nazareth. We must remind ourselves however that the term synagogue (synagogē ‘a gathering’ in Greek), like ekklesia (‘church’, ‘congregation’), did not originally refer to the edifice, but to the people who gather inside that building. So, while we are still free to speculate whether there was any formal synagogue building in Nazareth or not, it’s safe to say that a synagogē can and probably did exist there, even if they just met in someone’s house or something - since public prayer can be carried out wherever a minimum of ten men (a minyan) over the age of thirteen assemble. Not that difficult a requirement even with just 200-400 people - according to one estimate - in the village (unless somehow most Nazarenes happened to be women
)!Another problem we must consider is that very little archeological investigation has been possible in Nazareth, as unlike Capharnaum later and modern buildings largely obscure and at times, sit directly atop much of the original site, as Nazareth was continually inhabited for at least 2000 years (compare that to Capharnaum, which was abandoned in about the 8th century). This is where archeologists are in a dilemma: the only way we can properly excavate the rest of Nazareth is to demolish any later edifice that stands in the way. Which is impossible, unless we can somehow convince the 65,900 residents of modern Nazareth to relocate elsewhere and leave the whole area for experts to dig up. Hence, it would be more correct to say that no synagogue building has been found in excavated areas - which is just a small portion of the total (after all, how can we say with certainty whether a building exists or not if we have never dug the whole place?). Who knows? If there was actually a synagogue building in Nazareth, its ruins could be still lying under the ground. Time will tell.
And BTW, can you elaborate on the scrolls and the brow of the hill?
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fisherman_carl
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Jesus may not have written anything down simply because he never had time to. Think about it. He was crucified at 33. His ministry was only 3 years long. And in that time he was preaching the Kingdom of God, leading disciples and doing signs and wonders. When did he have time to write a scroll? Jesus expected his apostles to continue preaching the kingdom after he left and may have also expected his disciples to write scrolls (books) later. It would only be later, when the apostles had time, could something be written.
But note in Revelations we see Jesus explicitly tell John to write down the prophecy on a scroll (book) and send it to the 7 churches in Asia. (Rev 1:11). So, it is not exactly true to say that Jesus never told anyone to write anything down.
But note in Revelations we see Jesus explicitly tell John to write down the prophecy on a scroll (book) and send it to the 7 churches in Asia. (Rev 1:11). So, it is not exactly true to say that Jesus never told anyone to write anything down.
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styxpix
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Only just joined - the last post interested me - hope it’s not too late to reply? It is suggested that Jesus didn’t write anything down because he was aware of his divinity and the limitations of the written word. As I see it, only the Jesus of John’s gospel made out he might be divine. The Jesus of the synoptic gospels appears as a very different person - preoccupied with the messianic age that was believed to be approaching - or perhaps had already arrived. Jesus along with many jews at that time was concerned about the here and now - with what was imminent, not a far future which may not happen! Therefore, I believe he wouldn’t have felt the need to write anything down.
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patg
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One only needs to read the Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels (available online) to realize that the church does not teach that the gospels were eyewitness accounts or that they were written by “The” apostles. The gospels are of “apostolic origins” which also is not an assertion that the material isn’t apostolic.
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steve53
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Patrick mentioned the excavation at Capharnaum. Just thought I would mention how complete they are- no stone is left unturned! Imagine how anxious the original archaeologists must have been, hoping to find some evidence of Jesus. Alas, nothing much was found…
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PioYapJr
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Based on your assumption that Jesus is not Divine, your response is reasonable. But don’t you think that if you look at it through our point of view, (that Jesus is God Himself) you would come to the same conclusion as I did?
Thanks for your reply.
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oneGODoneCHURCH
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Just what are they looking for, His id braclet? A diary? I mean What are they do you think would still be there 2000 years later that would say Jesus slept here.
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patrick457
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There was one interesting find in Capharnaum. From 1968 to 1985 the two-man team of Franciscan archeologists, Frs. Virgilio Corbo (1918 - 1991) and Stanislao Loffreda (1932-) excavated an octagonal church, dating from the 5th century AD, built on top of a simple courtyard house - their term for these blocks of residential houses with a common courtyard was insula - that was originally built somewhere during the 1st century BC and was in use around the 1st century AD. What seemed to be Christian graffiti in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Syriac had been scratched into the plaster of one room as early as the 2nd century. This particular room lacked any domestic artifacts and had been replastered several times, so if indeed there was a Christian connection here, the first generations of Christians would have clearly deemed it to be of some significance.
The excavators deemed the octagonal structure to be actually built atop the house of St. Peter, of which the ancient pilgrims, such as Egeria and the pilgrim of Piacenza, write often about.
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annem
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Epistemes
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Master_Edward
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Matthew can be shown to have extensively used Mark as a source for his Gospel, but the numerous errors in Mark make it highly improbable that an Apostle would have placed such heavy reliance on such a poorly conceived work. Something is definitely remiss when it is recorded in the Catholic Encyclopedia, in a favorable evaluation of the clerical mindset, there ascends the Catholic Church, which admits that it does not know who wrote its Gospels or Epistles, confessing that all twenty-seven New Testament writings began life anonymously, “It thus appears that the present titles of the Gospels are not traceable to the Evangelists themselves… They [the New Testament collection] are supplied with titles which, however ancient, do not go back to the respective authors of those writings.” ~Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, pp. 655-6.
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thistle
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Luke was not an Apostle.
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