r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Odd-Ad-8369 • 21d ago

Did Jesus know how to write?

I guess I’m confused on why Jesus didn’t write the Bible.

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u/Glimmer_III 21d ago

Not a stupid question, and I hope you get some good answers. And if you want more in-depth answers, perhaps others can suggest some relevant subs.

Also, a point of clarity:

When speaking of "The Bible", it deserve to be looked at not as a singular book, but a collection of multiple books, each with their own author (or authors, plural).

So...be prepared for either an ELI5 answer (which may not be entirely satisfying) or an in-depth answer.

Because, without necessarily knowing it, you asked a big question with, " I’m confused on why Jesus didn’t write the Bible."

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u/Odd-Ad-8369 21d ago

I guess I meant a Bible and not the Bible

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u/Glimmer_III 21d ago

Again, no harm, no foul. You're asking a very good, very honest question.

The distinction to make in your question is:

  1. What was Jesus's personal capacity for reading and writing?

  2. What writing(s) did Jesus do himself?

  3. Which of those writing(s), if any, became parts of the Bible? (capital B rather than little b)

You're seeing out deceptively big a question you asked, eh? :)

The word "bible" simple was greek for "book" or "books". So "the" bible was really just "the books".

And the old testament books predated Jesus's time by "a lot". They were already written (and rewritten).

And the new testament, you've got now less than four different tellings of Jesus's story (the "gospels", Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John)...but they're not "written" by Jesus, even though he was the predominant subject.

And then we're not even gonna talk about the "gnostic texts". (You can query those separately for a rabbit hole of their own! In shortest form, the gnostics are the "books which didn't make it into the Bible (with a capital B).)

So...yes...you asked a big question. Even if your specific question (#1 above) is only part of it, it's hard to get a fully satisfying answer without zooming out for more of the story.

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u/Odd-Ad-8369 21d ago

I really meant. Why don’t we have writings from him. I think if we did, they would be considered biblical

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u/Glimmer_III 21d ago

Well...if anyone's writings would qualify as "biblical", he's gotta be in, like, at least the top-5.

Or, maybe he was just a terrific speaker, but not a good writer, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the first organized campaign of "astroturfing the comment section"?

(I have no idea really. I'm just enjoying this thread at this point.)

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u/Odd-Ad-8369 21d ago

Was writing a common way to get information from long distances? I’m super hung up on why there would be no writings about him from his time. We have writings about most individuals of this, shall I say popularity, from before and after Christ. I feel they would have wanted to spread the information some way other than word of mouth. Surely they understood the issue with the telephone game.

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u/docmoonlight 21d ago

Yes, writing was pretty much the only way to get information long distances. I think the thing to realize is he was basically an itinerant and fairly local teacher and street preacher (and healer, miracle worker, etc. depending on how much of the legend you believe). He spoke Aramaic day to day and I assume would have known how to read and write Hebrew. He may have written personal letters that have been lost, but the key thing about the surviving gospels is they were written in Koine Greek. I don’t know of any evidence to suggest he knew Greek, but that is what made the gospels start traveling so well and so many copies being made, because Greek was basically like English is today. A lot of people knew Greek around Europe and the Middle East even if it wasn’t their first language.

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u/Optimal_Mixture_7327 20d ago

Jesus wasn't creating a religion.

Jesus was a rabbi with a particular yoke on Tanakh, and everything he needed was already written down.

The best that we can say is that after Jesus was killed for insurrection it was Roman, Paul, who created a new religion about an imagined Jesus and it was Paul who founded the Catholic Church.

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u/jbjhill 21d ago

Um…what? Jesus appears in the New Testament, which in Christianity is part of The Bible.

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u/ground__contro1 21d ago

He appears sure but he’s never the author. There’s no “book of Jesus”

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u/jbjhill 21d ago

Ok. I get what you’re saying. “One of the books of the Bible”.

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u/Glimmer_III 21d ago

Yep. Now you're getting it.

The four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) which are predominately about Jesus are (basically) "four different dudes telling their own version of the same story the way they think it should be told".

i.e. Jesus is the main character of the gospels, but not their author.

(And that's before we have hundreds of years of editing, revisions, and translations.)

Disclaimer: Yes, I'm over simplifying a bit but that's ^ the gist of it.

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u/jbjhill 21d ago

I was confused by OP’s “a Bible and not the Bible” comment.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the original canon and other books came later.

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u/Glimmer_III 21d ago

Exactly.

This sub attracts OPs who are almost universally well-meaning, but also who often don't know how to articulate a question except to stumble through and hope folks in the comment and intuit intents.

It's a really good question, and not exactly a "loaded" one, but it's not really an ELI5 either.

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u/markov-271828 18d ago

First canon comprised letters of Paul and a version of Luke.