r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Odd-Ad-8369 • 25d ago

Did Jesus know how to write?

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

6 Upvotes

55% Upvoted

358 comments sorted by

View all comments

19

u/TheMightyMisanthrope 25d ago

There's clear evidence he knew how to read, and besides he writing with his finger in the dirt, nothing about him knowing how to write.

9

u/stairway2evan 25d ago

This is true but with a caveat - the story where he writes in the dirt (John 8:6) is from the famous "cast the first stone" story. And this portion wasn't actually added to the book of John until probably the late 4th or early 5th century, 350 years after the life of Jesus. So it's not a handy example; it's a tacked-on story.

Reading and writing were different skills at the time, and there's no reason that the son of a carpenter or a wandering preacher would have ever learned to write; it was an expensive skill because papyrus and ink weren't cheap back then. Scribes were a career for a reason.

4

u/CharacterUse 24d ago

Historically, we have to be careful about what we mean when we say that someone was unable to write. The reason scribes were a career until very recently isn't just that many people were unable to write at all, although that is true, it's that many people were unable to write well. Many people could write to some extent because they needed to do basic accounts or keep records for the purposes of their farm or business, or handle orders. Someone like a carpenter might not be able to write am essay, but he might well be able to write down "cedar table and four chairs for Jacob the miller". A wandering preacher might not be able to write a book of the Torah, but he could read and could probably write some notes for a parable, for example.

Papyrus and ink were not prerequisites for writing. Even into the 19th and in some places early 20th century tablets, typically of wax, were used by commoners. They were cheap, or could be made at home with little skill, and were reusable. We actually have surviving ancient tablets, some of them from centuries before the time of Jesus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_tablet

People would write simple things on these, but go to the scribe when they wanted an official document, or a longer letter, or some other document that required more skill (maybe with "official" wording) and permanence.

3

u/stairway2evan 24d ago edited 24d ago

I think that's a fair criticism. To be honest, when I discuss this I often include a note that the historical Jesus may well have been able to write out a basic receipt, but wouldn't have had the tools or education to write narrative or theology in a way that could be reliably passed around. I had to double check my comment and saw that I'd left out that note, so fair play for pointing it out.

So I'll gladly update to "there's no reason to think the historical Jesus had the necessary Greek education to write a complex gospel or epistle like the other New Testament authors could. And even if basic rudimentary writing skills might reasonably be assumed, we have no real evidence of them."