Was Jesus Literate?

Faith & Science Conversation
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Because reading wasn’t inmportant in society at that time and he lived in a poor agricultural hamlet and there would possibly have been a lot of work to do. It’s not axiomatic that Joseph would have tried to get Jesus to read, You are forcing your own worldview onto the text. Oral culture. Books are sparse. Most people couldn’t read, and if you want to speculate, how unlikely was it in a region like Nazareth?

It’s possible but why should we accept it? Nazareth was a very small agricultural community and may have required a lot of teamwork for daily life. You may simply be imagining a hierarchy and that Jesus’s family was at or near the top, something the response to him in Mark 6 completely defies.They don’t seem to know Jesus was studying in a synagogue every week, learning to read Torah. Even if Joseph/Jesus had higher standing, an assumption you have romanticizes but not established, there is no evidence he used it to get Jesus to read in a local synagogue.

We don’t even know that there was an actual synagogue building in Nazareth!!! Joseph wrangling deals with the synagogue leader and having Jesus learning to read there is more wild speculation. Theissen and Merz write (Historical Jesus A Comprehensive Guide)

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Ehrman writes: “Not a synagogue building, in the days of Jesus. Archaeologiest have dug the place up. There are no public buildings of any kind. The “synagogue” would have been simply the gathering of Jewish men, not a building.”

I do believe a house was discovered. In a different article Ehrman writes:

" Does Nazareth still exist? As it turns out, another discovery was made in ancient Nazareth, a year after Salm’s book appeared. It is a house that dates to the days of Jesus. Again the principal archaeologist was Yardena Alexandre, the director of the excavation at the Israel Antiquity Authority, whom I again wrote. She has confirmed the news report. The house is located on the hill slopes. Pottery remains connected to the house ranging from roughly 100 BCE to 100 CE (i.e., the days of Jesus). There is nothing in the house to suggest that the persons inhabiting it over this time had any wealth: there is no glass and no imported products. The vessels are made of clay and chalk.

The AP story concludes that “the dwelling and older discoveries of nearby tombs in burial caves suggest that Nazareth was an out-of-the-way hamlet of around 50 houses on a patch of about four acres… populated by Jews of modest means.” No wonder this place is never mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, Josephus, or the Talmud. It was far too small, poor, and insignificant. Most people had never heard of it and those who had heard didn’t care. Even though it existed, this is not the place someone would make up as the hometown of the messiah. Jesus really came from there, as attested in multiple sources."

Maybe we should listen to the archaeologists that excavated the region? Nazareth was nowhere and filled with nobodies. As Meier writes:

If Jesus had been raised as an aristocratic intellectual in Rome or Ath- ens, or even in Jerusalem, it would be easier to speculate on the nature of his education and the level of literacy he achieved. However, he grew up in Nazareth, an insignificant village in the hills of Lower Galilee, a village so obscure that it is never mentioned in the OT, Josephus, Philo, or the early literature of the rabbis or the OT pseudepigrapha." Hence it is hard to decide what, if any, formal education would have been available to Jesus in such an environment.

Jesus coming from Nazareth is part of how we know that, in general, we are dealing with some real historical details. There may have been an open forum or a very small structure as a synagogue. But imagining a place where first born Jewish boys in Nazareth went to learn to read Torah is a flight of fancy.

And Mark writing 40 years later might really have no way of knowing what the “synagogue” looked like in Jesus’s hometown. I don’t know. Nazareth was so obscure and small and may have lacked a synagogue building completely, yet somehow you find a way to Romanticize the life of Jesus by making him upper middle class in a tiny hamlet, that wrangled deals with local leaders to teach his son an unnecessary skill. If only his fellow townspeople, the ones he grew up with, knew what you knew about Jesus’s education, the response in Mark 6 might have been different. A better suggestion might be surmising Jesus was sent away and came back with learning. Or that as a wood worker he would have traveled a bit. But Mark needs none of that. The spirit of God descends on Jesus during his baptism. Mark attributes Jesus’s insight to his status as God’s son, endowed with his spirit, not learning under a scribe or religious authority – the people Jesus actually had the most conflict with.

Bart Ehrman actually thinks Jesus could read (at least he thinks it’s more probable than not) to some degree, but also notes how this could have occurred is a huge mystery.

Vinnie

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  • Don’t you just hate it when a nay-sayer cites material dating all the way back to 1998, when it’s 2023 now, and somebody has been writing stuff since 1998?
  • Looks like it’s time for a “resource throw down”–where resources are named and dates are given.
  • Before beginning, I think it’s appropriate to take a lengthy pause, which all us old white guys like to do so much, and invite literate membership to read: Portraits of the Historical Jesus as sourced by the Scholarly Community Encyclopedia from Religion:Portraits of the historical Jesus which tells us “There are many ways to eat a mango” without killing or harming an animal.
    • In particular, Handwiki’s article notes at least three:
      • John Meier, a Catholic priest and a professor of theology at University of Notre Dame, has stated "… I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they’re doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed …"Meier also wrote that in the past the quest for the historical Jesus has often been motivated more by a desire to produce an alternate Christology than a true historical search.
      • Bart Ehrman and separately Andreas Köstenberger contend that given the scarcity of historical sources, it is generally difficult for any scholar to construct a portrait of Jesus that can be considered historically valid beyond the basic elements of his life. On the other hand, scholars such as N. T. Wright and Luke Timothy Johnson argue that the image of Jesus presented in the gospels is largely accurate, and that dissenting scholars are simply too cautious about what we can claim to know about the ancient period.
      • Scholars involved in the third quest for the historical Jesus have constructed a variety of portraits and profiles for Jesus. However, there is little scholarly agreement on the portraits, or the methods used in constructing them.
    • Amply supplied with weapons, we can be better prepared to play chess.
      • “There are strong indications of a high illiteracy rate among the lower socio-economic classes in the Roman Empire at large, with various scholars estimating 3% to 10% literacy rates. However, the Babylonian Talmud (which dates from the 3rd to 5th centuries) states that the Jews had schools in nearly every one of their towns.”
      • Geoffrey Bromiley states that as a “religion of the book” Judaism emphasized reading and study, and people would read to themselves in a loud voice, rather than silently, a practice encouraged (Erubin 54a) by the Rabbis James D. G. Dunn states that Second Temple Judaism placed a great deal of emphasis on the study of Torah, and the “writing prophets” of Judaism assumed that sections of the public could read. Dunn and separately Donahue and Harrington refer to the statement by 1st-century historian Josephus in Against Apion that the “law requires that they (children) be taught to read” as an indication of high literacy rate among some 1st-century Jews. Richard A. Horsley, on the other hand, states that the Josephus reference to learn “grammata” may not necessarily refer to reading and may be about an oral tradition.
      • There are a number of passages from the Gospels which state or imply that Jesus could read.
      • The Jesus Seminar stated that references in the Gospels to Jesus reading and writing may be fictions. John Dominic Crossan who views Jesus as a peasant states that he would not have been literate.
      • Craig A. Evans states that it should not be assumed that Jesus was a peasant, and that his extended travels may indicate some measure of financial means. Evans states that existing data indicate that Jesus could read scripture, paraphrase and debate it, but that does not imply that he received formal scribal training, given the divergence of his views from the existing religious background of his time.
      • James Dunn states that it is “quite credible” that Jesus could read. John P. Meier further concludes that the literacy of Jesus probably extended to the ability to read and comment on sophisticated theological and literary works.
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Interesting thought as to whether a carpenter would have a high social status. Having grown up in an agricultural/ranching small town community, those with high social status were usually the landowners, along with the bankers and leading merchants. Anyone doing manual work for others, trading their sweat for others gold, were usually considered a little less fortunate than those with either material possessions or who had jobs that didn’t get their hands dirty. Now, if Joseph had a furniture store or was a general contractor, maybe. :wink:

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  • Come forth, @mtp1032. Care to pick a side and take a stand?
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  • Brother Phil: Read 'em and weep. :smile:
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Perhaps. But hobos travel a lot. It does make you wonder when Jesus started his ministry and had his band of disciples have a treasurer, where they got the money. Donations probably, as there are times that they seemed to have no real funds available and had to glean wheat. But, always the possibility that mom kicked in from time to time.

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  • 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. :grin: (And you probably shouldn’t swear. ; - )

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So it doesn’t take much scholarship to be a critical scholar. :grin:

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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) :

  1. 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,

  2. 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.

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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. :grin: 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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