- Not me 'cause 4 lessons from Jesus’ female funders reminds me that
- Luke wrote in 8:1-3: " Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.
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Good call, I had never caught that. Well, sorta goes against Jesus coming from a wealthy family, as well. Wealth being relative, of course.
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- On that we agree. Who needs wealthy family when you have wealthy, grateful friends and fishermen disciples.
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Probably won’t take much of a stand because a scholarly consensus does not exist. But, I have some thoughts (mostly from my readings of Dunn, Wright, Sanders, and Vermes).
Jesus was not an urbanite, at least insofar as the major cities of Galilee, vis, Sepphoris, Tiberias, and Scythopolis, are concerned, if only because they do not figure in any of the accounts of his travels. He doubtless knew Sepphoris, which was only a few miles from Nazareth, but he nevertheless seems to have regarded his mission as being best directed to the Jews in the villages and small towns of Galilee. Jesus ministered principally to the villages and towns on or near the sea. He spent all of His ministry in Galilee except for the last two weeks of His life.
There is little controversy over the languages he spoke or understood. He almost surely spoke and understood Hebrew and Aramaic, especially Aramaic (the lingua franca of much of the coastal Near East). His use of Hebrew, however, was non-trivial based on His Hebraisms quoted in the New Testament. Because all but a few weeks of life was spent in Galilee, a very multi-cultural, primarily Greek-speaking region, He undoubtedly understood Greek.
Jesus quoted exclusively from the Hebrew Torah (Paul, by contrast, quoted exclusively from the Greek LXX). Now, it’s possible His knowledge of the Torah could have been acquired by rote memorization, but His knowledge of the underlying theology and His ability to engage the Pharisees deeply and successfully suggests that His familiarity arose by reading and debating the Torah and its concepts advanced in the Oral Torah (codified as the Mishna in the 2nd century CE).
Most synagogues in those days had copies of various [Hebrew] Torah fragments of which the Isaiah scrolls seems to be the most common. In those days, synagogues were used as teaching and learning centers - not places of worship, i.e., sacrifice (although since praying is an integral part of reading the Torah, prayers of praise were surely part of the rituals surrounding Torah reading). So, in my view, Jesus almost surely could read Hebrew.
Finally, I believe that Jesus probably could not write. In this He was like 99.9999% of the Galilean population. Only scribes could write and Scribal training was intense, formal, and required a long apprenticeship to learn. Learning to write was not a casual undertaking. In other words, if one could write, s/he was a scribe, not a teacher or Pharisee.
Blessings,
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I edited a comment above, deleting ‘inducing friction’ because I thought it would induce friction. 
(And you probably shouldn’t swear. ; - )
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- Well and good, from where I sit; although I question your use of the word “scholarly” because there are three clusters of view-points that call themselves “scholarly”: i.e. the nay-sayers who say Jesus wasn’t literate, the yay-sayers who say Jesus was as literate as he needed to be in order to be crucified, get resurrected, and lifted into heaven, and the heathen who hold on to the belief that there is no life after death, which include Christian Sadducees and Atheist Sadducees. Just tell me that you personally aren’t among nay-sayers or the Sadducees of either tribe, and your position will accepted … in my book.
- I like that already.
- Thanks for that since, as far as I knew literacy among urbanites was not been refuted. what nay-sayers have said is the Jesus was among “peasant class”; and I just find that hard to believe.
- I see that as a point for yay-sayers.
- Another point for yay-sayers.
- I like that because that’s what I’ve come to believe about Paul, i.e. Jesus revealed himself to the Greek-speaking Pharisee who had been born in Tarsus,studied “at the feet of Gamaliel” in Jerusalem", and “taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers” (Acts 22:3).**
- Which is yet another point for yay-sayers =:points and MATCH!!!" Yay-sayers win!!!
- Well done! Thanks for your valuable input!
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FYI, my view is that a scholar is someone who publishes in peer-reviewed publications AND has a demonstrated record of public advocacy for his/her claims. Examples are the 4 scholars I mentioned in my response but also include the following scholars: Sarna, Cassuto, Waltke, Grudem, John Collins, Friedmann, Westermann, Wenham, Zevit, Altar, Brettler (These are scholars of whom I have one or more books on my bookshelf).
Just to be clear. These scholars have different views on virtually everything. In many discussions in which I participate my so-called “scholar-supported” position is gleaned from scholars who disagree with one another.
Blessings
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I have studied this passage and to me this verse suggests two possibilities if we accept the “large letters” translation (which is reasonable i think) :
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It was written towards the end of Paul’s ministry and was due to physical issues related to his lifelong service, age, and likely less than youthful eyesight (among other physical constraints old people suffer from) and the torturous suffering during his ministry at the hands of captors or,
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He was in fact trying to make a theological point.
I accept that both of the above have legitimacy however, given Paul was ministering I would imagine the theological is the more important concern of the two. Paul being an apostle probably isn’t really interested in trying to spend useless time complaining about physical ailments as some kind of lesson on how to be a better Christian so it may simply be, that Paul was highlighting that he considered this farewell so important that despite his physical ailments he wrote this with his own hand…either way, this is what i think is the real meaning of this passage as note what Paul writes just a few verses later in the same chapter of Galatians 6
Gal 6:17From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
Clearly, Paul is reinforcing to the Galatians how important it is to bear the marks of Christ (the fruits of the spirit one might say) and that this may also manifest itself in physical ailments from persecution and years of service.
In any case, it is not evidence of any issue relating to literacy.
Not literate at all. I believe the crux of this conversation is an inerrancy discussion, because Luke portrays Jesus as literate in Hebrew. Isn’t that why you are all discussing this?
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“Our conclusion must be that Jesus came from Nazareth. The shift of his birthplace to Bethlehem is a result of religious fantasy and imagination…”
That conclusion is a result of fantasy and imagination; it is not grounded in any reason other than the prejudice in “historical Jesus” studies to dismiss as much as possible from the Gospels.
The writing there is typical of what I studied in grad school. It demonstrates something half our class concluded, namely that you can argue anything at all from the scriptures if you hide your preconceived notions under scholarly phrases.
The important phrase being “in a tiny hamlet”. In even Capernuam the status would have been lower.
Definitely! That “quest” led a professor of Old Testament to decide that “God didn’t know Jesus was going to be born”.
That’s always been the case, and it has been because the “quest” has always depended more on preconceived notions than on evidence.
Of course he said that – he wanted a Jesus who was hardly more than a Neanderthal, if even that.
Of course he had no formal training – Nazareth without a doubt had no trained teacher of any sort. Jesus’ Torah “training” would have been informal discussions among the men of the village.
That would almost require serious literacy in Greek, not just Aramaic and Hebrew.
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Only if by that you mean an existing Greek translation; a number of Paul’s quotes don’t match any extant Greek version, suggesting that occasionally he did his own translation from the Hebrew.
I would add “fluently” to that. He would probably have been able to write His name (or an abbreviation), plus that of Joseph, and the Hebrew and Greek letters used as numbers. There’s a good chance He would have been able to write a few words having to do with accounts, e.g. the equivalent of “paid in full”.
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The two are actually linked: in Jerusalem, He probably would have been regarded as a peasant since so many there considered manual labor beneath them, but in Nazareth being a craftsman would have made for higher standing.
= - = + = - = † = - = + =- - =
I would have defined “scholar” as anyone who has written and had to defend a Master’s thesis.
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Huh, how about that. And you must genuflect before anyone who puts a PhD after their name. (In a decade quite a ways past, my boss put PE after his name. He thought it stood for Professional Engineer. In reality, it stood for Probable Error. The other guys would come to me when his plans didn’t work or were impossible to implement. But he must have been a good test taker.)
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- I’m pleased to hear that because I don’t believe Jesus’ literacy is an inerrancy, “make it or break it” issue. An atheist who acknowledges a literate Jesus does not become a theist by believing it, and a Christian theist who refuses to believe it doesn’t cease to be a theist.
- I don’t. I, personally, think it’s a “Sub-tribal” issue and impacts ecumenical decisions and the nature of bridges I surround myself with.
- I don’t know why anyone other than the OP’s author is discussing this, so others can speak for themselves. As for me, If someone believes in the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Jesus, eternal life after death, the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and acknowledges the occurrence of demonic activity and of “miracles”, that person is in the same Christian sub-tribe that I am n. The OP’s author dismissed my belief in the authenticity of the Shroud on, IMO, irrational and unreasonable grounds; and I dismiss his belief in Jesus’ literacy on strictly rational and reasonable grounds. , ,
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Yeah, one professor actually maintained that the book of Joshua was an ancient tour guide for stone markers in the Jordan valley. “What do these stones mean?” was his key concept.
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I’m discussing it because I find reasoning through such things to be entertaining – and this one also means thinking about my Savior.
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Jesus was God. I’m 100% certain that God, who created everything, was literate.
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When God became Jesus, he became an embodied human with a physical brain that controlled his cognition. Do you believe baby Jesus emerged from Mary’s womb knowing how to read in every human language?
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Or at all . . . .
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