What could be the possible reasons why Jesus never wrote anything down?

[TimothyH]

I have always wondered what He wrote in the sand. Where did you learn this?

This teaching is not my own, but the one who sent me, Jeff Cavins.

biblestudyforcatholics.com

I have read the Bible cover to cover four times and Scripture is one of the joys of my life. It is amazing how much of what Jesus says is based on what was written in the Old Testament, especially the prophets. Christians don’t take the time to understand the prophets as much as they should IMO.

Probably no one there that day was able to read what Jesus wrote anyway, or even bothered. St. John does not tell us that anyone read it, nor does St. John give the reader the meaning, implying that no one understood what he wrote, that it was to be revealed only to those whom he chose to reveal. It is an echo or reflection of the story of in Daniel.

It is super interesting to read Daniel 5 and 6 in light of this passage, and vis versa.

-Tim-

 

[patrick457]

The writing on the sand in the parable is a reference to the hand of God which wrote on the wall in Daniel 5, which no one could read except the Prophet Daniel.

I think the reference is probably more to this: “And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.” Note the context: the scribes and Pharisees tell Jesus that “in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women;” and in response Jesus mimics God’s finger-writing.

There is much debate on if he could write or not, and many New Testament scholars believe he could not.

As per studies on literacy in first Century Palestine, probably less than ten percent of people at that time in his area were somewhat literate…and if so, they were more apt to be able to read, rather than to write.

(The adulterous woman anecdote, as you may know, was not in the original canon, but added a few hundred years later. So there is question here, too, on how accurate that moment when he was writing on the ground is.)

.

We often learn reading and writing as a set, but in the ancient world, being able to read is not an automatic guarantee that one could write.

 

[TimothyH]

I think the reference is probably more to this: “And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.”.

Yeah, they were talking about the law of Moses.

Nice, Patrick! Thanks!!!

You know that you are a rock star, right?

-Tim-

 

[revert_jen]

I wonder if one reason would be that anything of Jesus’ that was written in His own hand would be in danger of being misused as some sort of magical artifact, drawing people away from faith in Christ and toward faith in a piece of parchment.

I don’t know anything, it’s just a thought I had.

However, Jesus is God. I’m pretty sure He could’ve written if there was some need for him to. I love that place in “The Passion of the Christ” where Jesus speaks with Pilate in Latin, because you can miss it if you aren’t paying attention. Shoot, if the apostles can speak in tongues, surely Jesus could. (Sorry for the side-track.)

–Jen

 

[revert_jen]

Probably no one there that day was able to read what Jesus wrote anyway, or even bothered.

I’m not sure I agree with this. The people who brought the woman were scribes and pharisees, who were the most likely people to know how to read.

I heard once in a homily that what Jesus wrote might be the sins (or hints showing He knew the sins) of the scribes and pharisees there (presumably written so that each man would recognize only the ones pertaining to himself). As each man recognized his own sins, he left in shame.

I’m not saying this is fact, just a possible idea. My concern with it has been that it seems like a lot of writing. But the other thing about that idea is that He wrote in the sand, so He could physically brush away and erase the writings of the sins, in the same way that He can wipe away the actual sins of mankind.

–Jen

 

[marymary1975]

hmmm, in the Gospels we are told that Jesus went to the Temple and shocked the learned there with His wisdom.

We are told went to the sinagogue and preached, they called Him Rabby. That is “teacher” and that He read from the Old Testament.

The mith that the Israelites were an ignorant bunch of troglodites is not supported by the fact that their religion and faith imposed on them having to “read” in the sinagogue the content of the books of the Old Testament and before they had written them down they would learn them by heart. This was a requirement of their culture. Pretty much like even now the muslim are supposed to learn the koran by memory in arabic and not in their native language.

Yes they had “scribes” that were versed in writing, probably because eventually as the land was conquered by Mesopotamians and Persians and Greeks they had to addapt to write into this languages and not many were poliglots, this is the same today. How many can read and write in 2 or more languages?

A clue that this is the case comes from the 280 BC when the Rabbis of the Temple of Jerusalem were “forced” to allow the translation of the books of the Old Testament into Greek.
Because many more Jews could read Greek but not Aramaic or Hebrew and they HAD to read the OT in order to comply with the sinagogue assembly, hence the Septugiant was allowed to be prepared.

Writing or rather Copying the books of the OT was in itself a different story. Since it is such a sacred task only holy persons were allowed to do this, it did not matter if you could read and write, this was secondary in importance in this case.

–

Exactly, I was about to write almost the same. Jesus was a Rabbi which as someone else accurately pointed above, they were the scribes at the time, also and not a regular Rabbi, one which the bible says that his wisdom surprised other Rabbis.

Saying that Jesus didn’t know how to read and write makes absolutely no sense (as if that were true he couldn’t have been a Rabbi hence a scribe). That is a deduction that comes from the common stereotype that Israelites were a bunch of illiterate troglodytes which is not true and from a lack of knowledge regarding jews and Rabbis.

 

[Fidelis]

(The adulterous woman anecdote, as you may know, was not in the original canon, but added a few hundred years later. So there is question here, too, on how accurate that moment when he was writing on the ground is.).

Slight correction here. Some scholars believe it was not originally a part of St. John’s Gospel, where it is placed now. As long as there has been an established canon (at least by the 5th century or so) this episode has been recognized as part of the inspired canon.

 

[mommamaree]

This teaching is not my own, but the one who sent me, Jeff Cavins.

biblestudyforcatholics.com

I have read the Bible cover to cover four times and Scripture is one of the joys of my life. It is amazing how much of what Jesus says is based on what was written in the Old Testament, especially the prophets. Christians don’t take the time to understand the prophets as much as they should IMO.

Probably no one there that day was able to read what Jesus wrote anyway, or even bothered. St. John does not tell us that anyone read it, nor does St. John give the reader the meaning, implying that no one understood what he wrote, that it was to be revealed only to those whom he chose to reveal. It is an echo or reflection of the story of in Daniel.

It is super interesting to read Daniel 5 and 6 in light of this passage, and vis versa.

-Tim-

Wow, that is expensive. I will have to wait a while before I can do that, I am afraid.

 

[Fidelis]

There is much debate on if he could write or not, and many New Testament scholars believe he could not.

The corollary being that many other scholars believe that he could. So it boils down to the fact that nobody can say conclusively whether he could or not, since our primary historical and biographical source about Jesus-- i.e. the New Testament-- does not mention it.

As per studies on literacy in first Century Palestine, probably less than ten percent of people at that time in his area were somewhat literate…and if so, they were more apt to be able to read, rather than to write.

This is a somewhat outdated position. As archeologists dig deeper into locations where the common folk lived, they have found more and more evidence that there was much more literacy among them (including writing) than formerly believed.

Literacy In The Time of Jesus - Biblical Archaeology Society

 

[TimothyH]

I’m not sure I agree with this. The people who brought the woman were scribes and pharisees, who were the most likely people to know how to read.

I heard once in a homily that what Jesus wrote might be the sins (or hints showing He knew the sins) of the scribes and pharisees there (presumably written so that each man would recognize only the ones pertaining to himself). As each man recognized his own sins, he left in shame.

I’m not saying this is fact, just a possible idea. My concern with it has been that it seems like a lot of writing. But the other thing about that idea is that He wrote in the sand, so He could physically brush away and erase the writings of the sins, in the same way that He can wipe away the actual sins of mankind.

–Jen

Jen, thank you for the image of Jesus brushing away the sins. That is sublime.

I see that I am not as smart as I thought.

-Tim-

 

[TimothyH]

Wow, that is expensive. I will have to wait a while before I can do that, I am afraid.

Our parish sponsors the DVD’s and the individual students by the study books. I have led four of the studies in my home and am about to start the fifth. I’ll probably get the DVD’s, run the study and then return the DVD’s to the Church when I am done.

We reached out to Great Adventure as a parish and they flew two people from Minnesota to train the small-group facilitators here in Atlanta. These are not rewrites of Protestant studies. They are Catholic from the ground up. The first words of the first study are, “The Catechism of the Catholic Church says…” You gotta love that.

Reach out to Great Adventure, get some info and then sit down with your Pastor. It can’t hurt. He just might go for it.

-Tim-

 

[mommamaree]

Our parish sponsors the DVD’s and the individual students by the study books. I have led four of the studies in my home and am about to start the fifth. I’ll probably get the DVD’s, run the study and then return the DVD’s to the Church when I am done.

We reached out to Great Adventure as a parish and they flew two people from Minnesota to train the small-group facilitators here in Atlanta. These are not rewrites of Protestant studies. They are Catholic from the ground up. The first words of the first study are, “The Catechism of the Catholic Church says…” You gotta love that.

Reach out to Great Adventure, get some info and then sit down with your Pastor. It can’t hurt. He just might go for it.

-Tim-

Unfortunately, I cannot. I have promised myself I won’t volunteer for anything else for a while!

 

[COPLAND_3]

Any question as if the Lord could read or write sounds quite rediculous to me! We see in the Gospels that He read a passage from a scroll of Isaiah, and also wrote in the sand! Plus, He’s the Lord God in the flesh!

 

[Aloysium]

There was no need.

He is the Way. He did not come to talk about the way.
He created His church to follow Him, most importantly in deed.
Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we find Him in the reality of the day-to-day, loving God and one another, not in the realm of ideas.

Having said that, as members of that church it is important to share what we know and understand of God.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

The only time I can recall in scripture that Jesus ever writes anything down is in the parable of the adulterous women John 8:6

So what could be the possible reasons why Jesus never wrote anything down?

Well, judging by how many people (Christian and otherwise) now claim that they only accept what 'the Bible actually says JESUS SAID" (otherwise known as the ‘words in red’ crowd), just IMAGINE how people would be if there were known written works of Jesus available. “I will ONLY accept as true what JESUS ACTUALLY WROTE”. . .and ignore the rest as ‘tampered with’ and ‘not as good’. . .

So unless Jesus personally wrote: "abortion as known in the 21st century is a grave moral evil’ and ‘homosexual actions are grave moral evils’, we would have ‘proof positive’ according to the abortion rights and ‘gay rights’ crowd that since Jesus 'never condemned it in writing, it’s A-OK.

Personally I think Jesus could not only read, but write, but living in a time and place as He did, chose not to leave anything ‘behind’ during His earthly sojourn.

 

[po18guy]

There is much debate on if he could write or not, and many New Testament scholars believe he could not.

I might wryly point out here that many New Testament “scholars” no longer believe that Christ is divine or that the miracles actually occurred. They postulate preposterous natural explanations for each of the miracles. The modernist “scholars” who wrote the notes on Luke 1:46-55 in the NAB/RE appear to assume and believe that Luke essentially copied and pasted Hannah’s canticle (1 Samuel 2:1-10) into his Gospel because it fit and sounded good. Pardon me, but I will stick with more reliable authorities - Benedict XVI vs. Deepak Chopra, for instance.

(The adulterous woman anecdote, as you may know, was not in the original canon, but added a few hundred years later. So there is question here, too, on how accurate that moment when he was writing on the ground is.).

What on earth is this “original canon” that you speak of? Do you mean before Luke wrote his Gospel? Since the "canon’ was being put to papyrus from before then until long after John’s death, just what are we speaking of?

This is what I find so endearing about skeptics. They are only skeptical about the evidence that that jeopardizes their own conclusions but not so skeptical about evidence that supports their beliefs. Scratch below the surface and you find skepticism to be just as “selective” as any other belief system.

Skeptics are not devoid of belief. In fact, they are well-set in their current train of thought. The skepticism part reveals only a fear of considering new ideas.

We need to have a firmer grasp on the real story before we submit inconclusive points as evidence contrary.

But this makes for must less lively discussion!

 

[Fidelis]

Originally Posted by DaddyGirl View Post
There is much debate on if he could write or not, and many New Testament scholars believe he could not.

Are you kidding-- the big thing now around the internet and pop-scholarly books is people questioning whether even Jesus actually existed! I guess the hope is that, if you can’t deny the truth and authority in which he speaks, maybe we can just make him go away.

 

[po18guy]

Are you kidding-- the big thing now around the internet and pop-scholarly books is people questioning whether even Jesus actually existed! I guess the hope is that, if you can’t deny the truth and authority in which he speaks, maybe we can just make him go away.

For once in my life, I am not kidding! Seriously, therse modernists love a great fable, but cannot stand one that requires faith.

 

[Genesis315]

If I were to guess why Jesus did not leave us anything in writing is because He is the Word. It requires our religion to be a religion of a Person rather than just a religion of a book.

 

[Brendan_64]

So what could be the possible reasons why Jesus never wrote anything down?

He wasn’t a scholar like Paul, he was a preacher, a man of the ordinary, illiterate, men and women. He preached His message of love and salvation and it has lit up the whole world. Why would He have needed to write anything down? To prove something to the sceptics of later years? Jesus wasn’t a recorder of the Word, He was the Word itself.