Why did Jesus not write?

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Hi, Brothers and Sisters in Christ.
I have posted this article (about two-third part of it) in the Meet and Greet #34, post no.359.
I was advised by CarmeliteGirl to post it here (to be in its proper place. So, here goes:

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 autobiog-raphy 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!

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.

(To be continued …)
 
This is a continuation of the thread “Why Jesus Did Not write”:

The book would evoke such awe and reverence that its original version must be zealously pre-served. 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
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 res-urrected? 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 triumphalist 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 be-came strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”
 
Payoip said:
It may sound triumphalist but it is hard to escape the observation that Jesus’ Church is the apex of God’s creation.
Click to expand...
It is indeed triumphalist but it is also true. And oral teaching only was not strange to those in his day, but it is now strange to us.
 
QUOTE=Payoip;4886458]This is a continuation of the thread “Why Jesus Did Not write”:

The book would evoke such awe and reverence that its original version must be zealously pre-served. 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
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 res-urrected? 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 triumphalist 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 be-came strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”

:clapping: :newidea: :amen: :yyeess: :clapping: :extrahappy: :blessyou: :yyeess:
 
Payoip said:
Hi, Brothers and Sisters in Christ.
I have posted this article (about two-third part of it) in the Meet and Greet #34, post no.359.
I was advised by CarmeliteGirl to post it here (to be in its proper place. So, here goes:

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 autobiog-raphy 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!

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.

(To be continued …)
Click to expand...
:clapping: :newidea: :hug1: :blessyou: :aok: :clapping: :extrahappy: :dancing:
 
There’s actually pretty good evidence that Jesus did write – one brief letter, to Abgar of Edessa. The letter was preserved in the official records of Edessa for about three centuries, and recovered by Eusebius in the time of Constantine.

You can see it here:

pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/lettersJesusAbgarus.htm
 
Esquire0130 said:
There’s actually pretty good evidence that Jesus did write – one brief letter, to Abgar of Edessa. The letter was preserved in the official records of Edessa for about three centuries, and recovered by Eusebius in the time of Constantine.

You can see it here:

pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/lettersJesusAbgarus.htm
Click to expand...
Unlikely - if Our Lord wrote one letter he would’ve written more. And ALL His writings would’ve been preserved - you think God incarnate would allow HIS writings to go astray?
 
The Old and the New Testament are the words of Christ when you really think of it. Even more awe inspiring is the fact that they ARE Christ in a way. Christ is the Word of God, and all of Scripture is God-breathed, thus it is from Christ. Think of it this way, the Prophets, Apostles, Kings, Wisemen, etc were secreteries writing the Word down.

When I read the Scriptures I do so with awe and reverence, because I am reading not the words of men, but the very Words of God.
 
Esquire0130 said:
There’s actually pretty good evidence that Jesus did write – one brief letter, to Abgar of Edessa. The letter was preserved in the official records of Edessa for about three centuries, and recovered by Eusebius in the time of Constantine.

You can see it here:

pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/lettersJesusAbgarus.htm
Click to expand...
I am aware of that letter, and believe that because Eusebius had made such inquiries into it, that there is a very good chance it did exist. I don’t think it is necessary to believe that Jesus actually wrote the letter, but rather responded to the messenger directly of the first letter from Agbar who then wrote down this reply himself, and carried it off to Agbar.

Why would that be so inconceivable, that an important person, believing in Jesus, sends a messenger with an invitation to come to his place. Jesus was famous for eating with sinners, talking with Samaritans, and even healing gentiles. That Jesus knew his faith, and that his Apostles would eventually be sent specifically to him, he prophesied.

There was no other occurrences of this type of letter, only this single one noted by Eusebius. Why would a whole city hold such a document as a sacred relic and treasure if it was entirely fictional?

I’m not suggesting that one must believe this account, but rather, there is nothing preventing pious reasonable Christians from believing it to be true. 🙂
 
AmbroseSJ said:
I am aware of that letter, and believe that because Eusebius had made such inquiries into it, that there is a very good chance it did exist. I don’t think it is necessary to believe that Jesus actually wrote the letter, but rather responded to the messenger directly of the first letter from Agbar who then wrote down this reply himself, and carried it off to Agbar.

Why would that be so inconceivable, that an important person, believing in Jesus, sends a messenger with an invitation to come to his place. Jesus was famous for eating with sinners, talking with Samaritans, and even healing gentiles. That Jesus knew his faith, and that his Apostles would eventually be sent specifically to him, he prophesied.

There was no other occurrences of this type of letter, only this single one noted by Eusebius. Why would a whole city hold such a document as a sacred relic and treasure if it was entirely fictional?

I’m not suggesting that one must believe this account, but rather, there is nothing preventing pious reasonable Christians from believing it to be true. 🙂
Click to expand...
If I recall the passage from eusebius correctly, after the resurrection Thomas the Apostle went to Agbar and preached there, he healed Agbar and converted the entire city. Thus in fact this story shows Christ first establishing his Church and having his Church go and teach. The story supports in a beautiful way the points of the original post.
 
AmbroseSJ said:
There was no other occurrences of this type of letter, only this single one noted by Eusebius. Why would a whole city hold such a document as a sacred relic and treasure if it was entirely fictional?
Click to expand...
Do you know that TWO cities - Angers and Amiens - which I think are both in France - EACH claim to have the head (not a piece, but a whole head) of John the Baptist as a most precious relic.

Now simple maths leads us to deduce that, since John the Baptist can only have possibly had one head, one or other place is in fact venerating a fake as a relic.

Many many places claim to have a piece of the True Cross too - so many that if you put all those pieces back together you could probably make half a dozen crosses. The same simple maths leads us to deduce that, since there can only have been one cross, many people are wrongly venerating fakes.

So indeed an entirely fictional letter might be believed, erroneously, to be a relic and treasured.
I’m not suggesting that one must believe this account, but rather, there is nothing preventing pious reasonable Christians from believing it to be true. 🙂
Click to expand...
It’s not reasonable to believe that Jesus ONLY ever wrote one letter, and it’s not reasonable to believe, if He did indeed write, that ONLY one of His letters survives. So a pious Christian may believe, but not a reasonable one.
 
LilyM said:
Do you know that TWO cities - Angers and Amiens - which I think are both in France - EACH claim to have the head (not a piece, but a whole head) of John the Baptist as a most precious relic.
Click to expand...
Now that truly is a miracle! 😃
 
Do you know that TWO cities - Angers and Amiens - which I think are both in France - EACH claim to have the head (not a piece, but a whole head) of John the Baptist as a most precious relic.
Click to expand...
Completely irrelevant.
It’s not reasonable to believe that Jesus ONLY ever wrote one letter, and it’s not reasonable to believe, if He did indeed write, that ONLY one of His letters survives. So a pious Christian may believe, but not a reasonable one.
Click to expand...
As I already posted, it may merely have been a written transcription of the message that was given to the messenger by Jesus, who then returned to Edessa. What is so unreasonable about someone writing down something Jesus said? The important point to this story was that Jesus responded to Agbar’s letter with a personal message. Is this also unreasonable?
If Jesus did something once, it is only reasonable to say he did it all the time? Now who sounds unreasonable? 😉 Much that Jesus did was never recorded, and was lost for all time. How reasonable is that? Yet so the Gospels aver.

Lastly, the letter no longer exists, as far as I know. If it wasn’t for Eusebius, we would never have known about the letter (or so very much more about Church History, that can only be found in Eusebius.)
 
He left us something much more important than writing… the prairie tortoise!
 
AmbroseSJ said:
I am aware of that letter, and believe that because Eusebius had made such inquiries into it, that there is a very good chance it did exist. I don’t think it is necessary to believe that Jesus actually wrote the letter, but rather responded to the messenger directly of the first letter from Agbar who then wrote down this reply himself, and carried it off to Agbar.

Why would that be so inconceivable, that an important person, believing in Jesus, sends a messenger with an invitation to come to his place. Jesus was famous for eating with sinners, talking with Samaritans, and even healing gentiles. That Jesus knew his faith, and that his Apostles would eventually be sent specifically to him, he prophesied.

There was no other occurrences of this type of letter, only this single one noted by Eusebius. Why would a whole city hold such a document as a sacred relic and treasure if it was entirely fictional?

I’m not suggesting that one must believe this account, but rather, there is nothing preventing pious reasonable Christians from believing it to be true. 🙂
Click to expand...
Thank you, Ambrose. Bishop Eusebius, being much closer in time to the record recovered by himself, is more trustworthy than the skeptics, here for that reason.

God bless.
 
Esquire0130 said:
Thank you, Ambrose. Bishop Eusebius, being much closer in time to the record recovered by himself, is more trustworthy than the skeptics, here for that reason.

God bless.
Click to expand...
Tell us what credible theological scholars believe that.
 
AmbroseSJ said:
Completely irrelevant.

As I already posted, it may merely have been a written transcription of the message that was given to the messenger by Jesus, who then returned to Edessa. What is so unreasonable about someone writing down something Jesus said? The important point to this story was that Jesus responded to Agbar’s letter with a personal message. Is this also unreasonable?
If Jesus did something once, it is only reasonable to say he did it all the time? Now who sounds unreasonable? 😉 Much that Jesus did was never recorded, and was lost for all time. How reasonable is that? Yet so the Gospels aver.
Click to expand...
Certain things we only do once, sure - get born, die, turn 21, marry (hopefully). Some details of Jesus’ life - what he ate (most days), where He lived (most days), how often He went to the bathroom or bathed, most of the weddings or celebrations He attended, most of the Passovers He celebrated, what work He did during His hidden years. They weren’t recorded because they weren’t significant. His messages or letters, however, certainly ARE important and significant, on the other hand, and would be preserved as Paul’s were.

Again, there are things that human beings simply don’t do just the once - pay taxes, bathe, eat, brush our teeth, buy clothes - AND write or dictate letters or messages. Even the illiterate Joan of Arc, busy as she was and short as her life was, dictated, not just once but numerous letters and messages to various people. Again, NO WAY would the other letters He wrote or messages He dictated to other people (and there would certainly be others) be lost to us.

Jesus wouldn’t do such a thing for Agbar alone among all the people on the planet. It’s contrary to logic.
 
Jesus founded a Church, a Church that can correct a student when the student is wrong. This leads to unity.

A written work can be self interpreted any way the student wants, no one can correct the student if the paper is the sole instruction and authority. Every student is thus thier own pope and no one can be wrong. This leads to division.
 
“Why would that be so inconceivable, that an important person, believing in Jesus, sends a messenger with an invitation to come to his place. Jesus was famous for eating with sinners, talking with Samaritans, and even healing gentiles. That Jesus knew his faith, and that his Apostles would eventually be sent specifically to him, he prophesied.”

Granting that the alleged letter is genuine, it still does not contradict our thesis that Jesus deliberately did not intend to leave us something of a written document about his mission.

Also, if such letter of Jesus does exist why are we not making much fuss about it like what we did with the Shroud of Turins?
 
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