How many people of 2000 years ago were literate?

Question

Only asking because a lot of verses in the Bible quotes exactly what some people said? How can you quote someone if you were not there at that moment to record it? Wasn't it all just hearsay? Almost like fishermen stories. He caught a small fish told a friend it was a big one and twenty years later it was the biggest fish ever caught? I thought about this question after i read a question about Moses and Gods magic tricks.

Answer 1

I am wondering if the word should be literal and not literate.
Even with today's technology people misquote or are misquoted all the time.
The bible is only correct at the moment it was written. And only in the context of the writer.
Just as in written history, the winner's words are perceived to be the truth, no matter what the facts are.

Diane

Answer 2

God doesn't do magic tricks.

God chose very smart Men to make record
of His Word.
Moses was raised as a Prince. He was educated.
Jesus had some Men of Education that followed him.
Of the twelve, one was a Doctor, and one
was a Tax Collector.

God wrote the book of Genesis, using the
hand of Moses. He spent alot of time with God.
Moses wrote down all the Laws that God wanted
the people to follow in the wilderness.
God wrote the first ten,
the Ten Commandments on stone tablets.
Moses read them to the people.
That was well over 2000 years ago.

Find a good God believing Church in your area
to attend.
I pray that they will have a good Bible study
for you to study Gods Word.

Answer 3

The literacy levels of ancient peoples were always extremely low. (Really that applies to all people for most of recorded history.) I've seen scholar estimates that no more than 5% of the given population was literate at any given time in the ancient West and Middle East. (Some scholars might push that up higher somewhere to below 10% in places like Greece during it's golden age.)

Of course, only the upper class, educated could afford to be literate. The common person had no leisure time, because they had to earn a living through hard labor, and everything had to be made by hand. There were no modern conveniences to save time and energy. The vast majority of all peoples in ancient times relied more on oral communication than on the written word.

Literacy levels during history is an interesting topic. I find it's somewhat difficult to find good books on the subject. Here's a link to one I'll eventually get around to reading.

Side note: Recored history through oral traditions and exact written histories are NOT the same. For more info, see a couple of chapters in John Dominic Crossan's "The Birth of Christianity". Many people, even scholars, assume that oral history involves people remembering things precisely and exactly. This is not so, but only those people who investigate oral culture know this. Most people are not familiar with this area of study and rely more on what they imagine oral culture to be.

Answer 4

If you look at the New Testament, 13 of the 27 books were letters written by Paul to different churches. Usually they were in answer to questions as him, or situations reported to him. As Paul was literate, he would have understood what he meant to say in his own letters.

The same would hold true of the letters of James, Jude, Peter and John.

That leaves the four gospels and the book of Acts.

Matthew, who wrote the first gospel, was one of Jesus' twelve disciples. So he would have been there when the saying were originally given. In your story, he would have been the original fisherman. So at worst, the story would have been expanded only once. What prevents him from having told the truth?

Next is Mark. While not one of the 12, he did know Jesus personally and was present at the Last Supper ans arrest of Jesus. (He tells about himself in Mark 15). He was also a traveling companion and "spiritual son" to the Apostle Peter. So Mark would have been, at worst, someone who heard and retold from the original fisherman. Interesting that 90% of Mark is word for word identical to the same accounts given in Matthew. (The other 10% is material unique to Mark). So it appears the story had not changed between the original teller and the first people to hear it.

Next written was Luke. Luke did not know Jesus personally, nor did he ever hear anything spoken by Jesus in person. According to the first five verse of Luke, he got his account from the investigating the stories or wrtings of the people involved. So Luke, in your story, is at least three people from the original fisherman. Yet 82% of Mark is retold the same within Luke's Gospel. 12% of the material is the same as new material in Matthew. The remaining 6% is unique to Luke, and insist mostly of the birth and childhood of Jesus. So even by the third generation, the story has not changed.

Whether it changes beyond that is meaningless, as those stories from later generations neither survive nor are treated as scripture.

So when you compare the three accounts of Jesus' life, each a step further from the original source, it becomes apparent that the information has not changed.

That leaves the book of Acts, which was written by Luke, one of the people who actually made the journeys and spoke the words recorded in that book.

Answer 5

Obviously you're really asking about the early Hebrews.

In point of fact, like any other pre-literate society they trained their memories for years. The elders could quote the history of their people verbatim because they spent years memorizing those words in exactitude.

Same as the Welsh bards who could recite lineages that would take up whole books if written down.

It's no biggie. If WE didn't have all the ways we have to communicate from person to person and from generation to generation we'd be doing the same thing; ie, training the brightest in memory retention techniques and storing the data in their minds instead of computers and libraries.

Answer 6

A friend of mine made the point once "Why would the Romans believe anything the Jews said enough to write it down?" He has a point. I would think that the Jews would have written it down. They were literate as well. I am at a loss to why none of them did. Even the apostles. Nothing was written down until about 70 CE. Why? I don't know if he existed or not. My jury is still out. But I know damn sure he wasn't God.

Answer 7

Good question, but Jewish men have been literate for as long as Judaism has existed. It's part of the faith. It's not a big secret, though, that the stories about Moses and so forth were passed on for many generations before anyone bothered to write them down.

Answer 8

No more than 5%.
You just figuring out all the books and letters are fairy tails.
Hell the muslim taliban just destroyed the Buddhist statues at Bamiyan because they declared them blasphemous.
You think rewritting the bible like the king james is any less difficult?

Answer 9

54

Answer 10

The manner in which things are recorded does not necessarily determine their validity or invalidity. Also, to say that there were an insufficient number of literate people to record things is illogical. Paul, Peter, and others WROTE letters to one another. These letters are in the Bible.