One thing that should be pointed out is that Jesus and his followers thought they were living in the endtimes. Even if they’d had the ability and the materials to write things down (and parchment was expensive for a group that ostensibly traveling and living off alms), they wouldn’t have necessarily seen any reason to preserve things for the long term since they thought the end of the world was coming in their lifetime.
Sorry, citing a thread that says to ignore a part of the scripture when we are talking about Jesus as described in scriptures just doesn’t cut it. Additionally contrary to that cite’s assertions it is in most if not all major translations.
There is a reason that passage is in there as it is, why it appears to be a latter addition, which I don’t need to go into here, but to say your argument would be a equally invalid saying that the entire NT is a later addition, or everything past the 5 books of Moses was a later addition.
The popular teacher who never writes anything down so we have to rely on his followers is a not uncommon trope. Lao-Tse and Socrates also never wrote anything themselves, that we know of.
According to John Dominic Crossan (prominent Historical Jesus scholar and founder of the Jesus Seminar), 95%-98% of the Palestinian population (inclusive of both the Roman province of Judea and the independent tetrarchy of Galilee) was illiterate at the time of Jesus. Jesus was not part of the social class (Priests and Pharisees, basically) who would have had access to an education. It’s theoretically possible that he studied with the Pharisees (or perhaps a group like the Essenes) as an adult, but the Gospels make no mention of it if he did.
Literacy was probably higher among diaspora Jews (Hellenized Jews living outside of Palestine, especially in cities like Rome and Alexandria), but a Jewish focus on widespread literacy was a post-70 development that came as a result of the destruction of the Temple, the rise of Rabbinic Judaism, and a new need to recalibrate the religious center of Judaism away from the Temple and onto study of scripture.
For anyone who is curious, John 8:6 says:
“They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.”
As I indicated earlier, I find arguments that this verse is apocryphal and arises from mistranslation compelling. That said, if you contend that this verse is proof of Jesus’ literacy, will you now conjecture regarding the matter of why a literate Jesus didn’t write down any of his teachings?
I don’t deny this at all but I’m mainly interested in Jesus at the moment. However, I’ll risk a tangent and ask you to conjecture as to why precisely you think these popular teachers never bothered to write things down and instead chose to entrust their message entirely to their followers.
Lao Tse is probably purely legendary. I don’t think Socrates cared.
I know you said you didn’t want to discuss option #3 (he didn’t exist), but you do realize that that is one of the best explanations for your question? If he never existed, all subsequent writings would have to be supplied by someone else, and that’s exactly what seems to have happened.
Even if he existed (and my personal opinion is that he did exist in some form or fashion), he might not have existed in any form remotely like our impression of his life from the gospels. Maybe he didn’t preach that much or travel that much; maybe he was a far more obscure prophet than most others. Maybe he only preached good works but didn’t claim to heal or feed anyone or walk on water. This would well explain the lack of contemporary writings – he just wasn’t all that spectacular to the pundits of the time but just one of many forgettable religious figures wandering around Palestine.
Paul is considered the major factor in the origin of Christianity. Maybe Paul contributed even more than he is given credit for.
Not considering option #3 is like trying to have a serious discussion on what BigFoot’s diet is, his height and weight, and how he likes his women when his mere existence has never been established. It cannot be ignored.
One possibility: He did write it down, and Pilate and Caiphas had the writings destroyed so no one would try to, y’know, base a religion off his rantings or anything.
If he were illiterate, weren’t most of the Apostles illiterate as well, including at least three of the credited writers of the Gospels? “Literate = Smart” was likely not a common expectation back then.
Yeah, I know. I just didn’t want this to become a pissing contest between atheists and Christians as so often happens. I’ve been there a million times and, while the wild spiraling frequently leads in amusing directions, it didn’t want it to happen here.
You’re right in that option #3 very neatly explains why Jesus didn’t write things down. Though I think it is a more figurative non-existence in that, there was a Jesus but he isn’t the guy people are talking about when they say “Jesus.” I guess I should have been more specific and stated #3 as, “The Biblical character of Jesus didn’t exist.”
Well, Socrates is known not for his message but for his method.
I’m going with #4. Jesus felt his message was for the people around him not for posterity.
From indications in some things Jesus said, he expected the endtimes to happen very soon. His early followers certainly expected the same. It wasn’t until a couple of decades had passed that people started to consider the long term picture and writing things down.
Certainly a possibility. But I’d expect the gospels to allude to the willful destruction of Jesus’ work as evidence of the many injustices committed against him if this were the case. You know, the same way banner ads today taunt you with, “The secrets they don’t want you to know about!”
And the GalileeLeaks website would have been all over it!
If vBulletin supported thumbs-ups you’d be getting one for that.
That particular passage is one that many scholars believe was added later. It does not appear in the earlier documents they have, appears as a story added in the margin of others, and then fully inserted in later documents.
I know that doesn’t follow certain beliefs about inspiration but those are the facts.
That would be my guess as well. Jesus as a teacher stressed that the real change happened in the inner person.
It’s also possible that one of his disciples did write things down and those original writings were lost. The Gospel of Thomas is supposed to be just a list of things he said. I can see the literate disciples doing that.
I think that maybe he didn’t write anything down because it simply didn’t occur to him to do so. Maybe putting things in writing wasn’t something that was common at the time. If, as has been indicated, he was not one of the educated classes of people and if most of the people of his time were illiterate, writing things down just wouldn’t have the same significance to them that it does to us today.
If you or no one you knew ever read anything or wrote anything down it just wouldn’t seem that important. I think we’re looking at the question from a modern perspective where reading history is taken for granted and important events being recorded in multiple forms is commonplace.
Which I guess is answer #2
Matthew, as a tax collector, would have been literate. Luke, as a physician, would have a good chance of being literate. For Mark and John we really don’t have much reason to go either way. However, it’s also a possibility that some of the apostles may have been illiterate while Jesus was alive and learned to read and write later with the specific intention of getting the words of Jesus recorded.
It’s a known fact that the passage where Jesus saves the woman caught in adultery is not in the very earliest manuscripts. However, there is at least one other passage in which Jesus reads, that beings when he enters the synagogue and reads the passages from Isaiah and then claims to be fulfilling them.
In my personal opinion (as a Christian) Jesus did knot write down his teachings because very few people did at the time. Thinking back on it, I can think of almost nothing from ancient times that we are sure was written down at the moment it took place. There may be some examples out there, but it was rare. Assuming that any person who wants their teachings to survive will write them down immediately is projecting a modern attitude into the ancient world.
Part of the message of Jesus is wrapped up with his identity as being a lower class member of a nation that was occupied by a foreign power–in other words, Jesus and his followers were among the lowest of the low. If Jesus had employed a technology associated with the upper class, it would have lessened that part of the message.
Some alternate possibilities than the three listed in the OP:
- Jesus didn’t feel that there was time to write stuff down, since the world was ending.
- Jesus, like most minor cult leaders, was more interested in his little cult of followers (particularly the girls) than in starting and spreading a new religion.
- What he did write down was never transmitted out of Jerusalem before the town was raised.
- What he did write down that made it out of Jerusalem was decried as heretical and was subsequently purged.
Overall, #2 is the safe bet. The people who wrote the Bible often had a poor understanding of Jewish life in Jerusalem around the 10BCE-30CE time period, and in general had to fill out a whole life story for a man whom they knew little to nothing about. At the earliest times, the only person who could have given them a factual answer would have been St. Peter. There’s no particular reason to think that Peter would have been honest (notice, for example, that the main character of Matthew is Peter). If he thought that having Jesus be a bit more than a stinky beggar living in the slums of Jerusalem (behind Mt. Olives) would sell the religion to the Romans – who had him up on trial, to be executed – he may well have raised Jesus’ abilities a good deal.