Was Jesus illiterate?

Question

It's almost certain that when he lived, someone in his profession would not have been able to read and write.

Answer 1

As sala'amu alei'kum, azizi.
[Arabic :Peace and Blessings be upon thee, friend.]

Isa Masihe [pbuh] or Jesus Christ, was a very well educated man, if you'll kindly refer to the Bible. One instance, where He displays his Wisdom and Learning is when He holds a Debate with the Council of the Rabbis and wins, as an adolescent.

Another instance is, again, displayed when He replies Pontius Pilate in Latin quoting from from Latin sources. He so much impresses Pilate that Pilate says to the People there - "Look at this man whom Caiaphas condemns! I see before me a Teacher, not a criminal!"

He was also known for His great knowledge of Medicine and was the very reason why Christians are not circumcised and are permitted to eat pork!? He taught them how the proper preparation of pork would make it safely edible and He also explained to them how personal hygiene would keep them from from getting UTIs and hence negated the need for circumcision!?

Read the Bible and you will see that the Devil asks Him "Physician, heal thyself!?"

He was a Doctor in the True Sense of the term.

Incidentally, there are many Epistles, Letters, that are credited to Isa Masihe [pbuh] which are works of Art.

May Allah, the Most Merciful, the Beneficient, bless all of you.

Ma sala'amah, ya aziza.

Answer 2

No, Jesus was not illiterate. Refer to Luke 4:18 where he is given the scroll to read from and then to offer commentary. The Scriptures back then were not divided into chapters and verses back then (Catholics did that!) so for Jesus to know exactly where to find Isaiah and then that particular verse 61:1-2, one had to be literate.

Refer also to Luke 2:46-47 where Jesus is found in the temple after three days and all who heard him were 'amazed" at his answers.

"Cardinal Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died 1228, divided all the books of Scripture uniformly into chapters, a division which found its way almost immediately into the codices of the Vulgate version and even into some codices of the original texts, and passed into all the printed editions after the invention of printing. As the chapters were too long for ready reference, Cardinal Hugh of St. Cher divided them into smaller sections which he indicated by the capital letters A, B, etc. Robert Stephens, probably imitating R. Nathan (1437) divided the chapters into verses, and published his complete division into chapters and verses first in the Vulgate text (1548), and later on also in the Greek original of the New Testament (1551)".

Answer 3

How could the Son of God be illiterate? It isn't scientifically possible that Jesus was illiterate. He was created as omnipotent. He could heal the sick, raise the dead, make the lame walk and the blind to see. Why would you feel that He was illiterate? He read into the future, He knew of His own fate, yet He still gave of Himself that those who believe in Him will live eternally in His father's house. Even those who once mocked Him, those that cursed Him, those who crucified Him. He loves beyond mankind's' ability to understand, yet you question His ability to read or write. All things are possible through Him, and you don't accept that all things were made possible for Him. Your knee shall bow one day, and your tongue shall confess that He is Lord, as will all others who have or does or will inherit this Earth. It's up to you to decide what your terms are with Him on that day, but decide now, for tomorrow may not get here. No one knows but the Father.

Answer 4

Luke 4:17-20 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

John 8:8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

Jesus' obviously familiarity with both the OT and the intertestamental writings, to the general attitude in Judaism that "to be able to read and explain the Scriptures was a revered goal" and Jesus' obvious skill at using the Scriptures, shows that it is far more likely that Jesus would have to have been literate to have had such skill.

Answer 5

Was Jesus Illiterate?
James Patrick Holding


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A charge offered now and then, and used to found other arguments, is that Jesus was illiterate. Let's take a look at what's offered in this regard. Our key source is Meier's Marginal Jew Vol. 1 [269ff].

Argument #1: 95% of the people in Jesus' time could not read or write, so the odds are that he could not either. While the data is correct (though in Israel the figure may have been more like 90%) it doesn't really provide an argument by itself. It's merely an attempt to stack the deck, and is not based on data concerning the subject, Jesus. By this same argument odds are better that Paul or Matthew could not read or write either.

Argument #2: Jesus didn't write anything himself, so he must have been illiterate. This is not a very relevant objection, since even literate people hired scribes in the Greco-Roman world. See more here.
Argument #3: The NT itself shows Jesus was illiterate. Now we get to the primary data. Let's look at the relevant cites:
John 7:15 And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?
"Letters" is gramma and refers to any writings -- letters, notes, scriptures, or even bills of sale (Luke 16:6, And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.) In John it is used to refer to the writings of Moses (5:47), or Scriptures. Here the matter is actually that Jesus never had formal training in the Scriptures: The context of the response is to Jesus' ability to expound the Scriptures, not his ability to read them. Furthermore, it points to Jesus being thought of as literate, since it is clear that they are granting that Jesus "knoweth" his letters -- and are asking "how'd he do that"???

Luke 4:17-20 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
John 8:8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
The word "wrote" is used to describe typical writing (John 8:17 It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.) -- admittedly it can mean "engraving" but this is not the majority usage. However, Meier rightly notes that it would even so say nothing about Jesus' level of literacy without any description of the content.

The Lucan cite Meier says provides "unquestionable proof" of Jesus' literacy -- though he adds that many could dispute this story as a Lucan redaction, a matter beyond our scope here, but which we would point to as being reliant on arbitrary argumentation.

Meier finally decides that the odds, though, are much greater that Jesus was literate even without these cites. He points to Jesus' obviously familiarity with both the OT and the intertestamental writings, to the general attitude in Judaism that "to be able to read and explain the Scriptures was a revered goal for religiously minded Jews," and Jesus' obvious skill at using the Scriptures, and concludes that it is far more likely that Jesus would have to have been literate to have had such skill. He adds that all that would be required for Jesus to have this path open was a pious father (Joseph would fill the bill) and a local synagogue (which Nazareth probably had) to do the teaching. We therefore conclude that the burden of proof would be on those who claim that Jesus was not literate.

Answer 6

If an illiterate is one who cannoot read or write, Jesus was no illiterate. If one who is literate is one who is wel-informed about his world, Jesus was no illiterate. If illiteracy is stupidity, Jesus was not an illitaerate. If literacy is level-headedness, Jesus was not an illiterate. If literacy is broad-mindedness, Jesus was no illiterate. When one reads the Bible, it is obvious therein that Jesus was no illiterate even as viewed by his contemporaries. What is obvious is that Jesus was superliterate and you cannot say he is computer illiterate because he is not around now to for us to try him on this matter that has come long after Jesus was around as a man.

Answer 7

No, Jesus could read and write. The Jewish men were educated, whether at home or in schools, because they had to be able to read scripture. In the Gospel of John, there was a scene where Jesus read from the scrolls, about the prophesy in Isaiah of the coming Messiah, and then he announced that the Messiah was he.

Answer 8

That is a good possibility, given the culture and the time, but it's impossible to know. It was common for people to at least have some reading ability, but because writing materials were so expensive, it was not common for the average joe to receive any training in writing. Most people at least learned to recognize the most common words and sentences, though.

I'd think that if he were God, then he would be able to read and write, though. (However, I don't believe that, so the point is moot.)

Answer 9

He could read. Even as a 12 year old he was with the teachers in the temple reading and studying scripture. Also in response to another answer, he was a real living person that much is not in debate through historical records, your question is whether he was who he said he was and if he actually did the things he is claimed to have done.....

Answer 10

The only evidence is this:

"He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah." Luke 4:16-17

Many prominent scholars regard this as historically accurate.