What are the chances a bronze age fisherman knew how to read or write?

Question

I was actually genuinely wanting to know! I realize that the Jews were rather educated in general so I was curious.

Iron age. Sorry

Answer 1

Pretty slim. They really didn't have any need to read or write as most of the information/knowledge they would need was more in Action than in books/scrolls/etc. During the bronze age, most of the things outside of their daily routine, such as religious content was mostly oral tradition. Very few actually knew how to read and write and those that did know how to... that was their profession... Scribe.

Answer 2

Actually other than the scholars of the time, the average Jew was only slightly more educated than the avereage citizen of any other part of the word in the Bronze age. The had to be able to read from the Torah, but that was about all the average Jew could do. So a fisherman aat the time would have been able to navigate his way through the Torah, but then that was all that was necessary as far as reading, although it was not uncommon for them to have a msattering of several languages that they could speak passible IF they lived in a metropolotin area and had to deal with people of multiple backgrounds.

Answer 3

Depends on the location the fisherman was growing up in.

If you're thinking of Jesus's contemporaries (much later) most of the Jews would've had a small practical knowledge of written Hebrew and Paul, as a Roman, certainly knew how to write his name and read stuff in Latin....even if poorly. If he was not particularly poor, he would've known written Latin and Greek.

The Romans were big on civic education for males.

Answer 4

about 100 to 1

Answer 5

The Chinese had a system of writing already in the bronze age. If a five year old in the present times can learn to read and write, why couldn't a fisherman 2000 years ago ?
Its not rocket science.

Answer 6

Iron Age, actually. The Bronze Age ended around 1000 BCE (or BC if you prefer).

Answer 7

The premise of your question is wrong. The Roman Empire in the 1st century was already in the Iron Age and had been so for hundreds of years.

Answer 8

You do realize the BA only ended around 1000 BCE. Writing began in the early BA. We have The hieroglyphic inscriptions dating to 3200 BCE.

Answer 9

I disagree with Hoosier Daddy. I think this is a very good question. The truth is not very likely. Though it is recorded that Jesus studied in the temple.

Brightest Blessings

Answer 10

Being working class -- he may have known how to cipher, maybe to write a few words, to keep records. I doubt he could have been a poet, and I doubt he had much time for reading.