Was Jesus Literate?

The_Commentary_on_Habakkuk_Scroll_(1QpHab)_Written_in_Hebrew_-_Google_Art_ProjectThe four Biblical gospels are the only early detailed source for the life of Jesus, so let’s assume that we take them at face value. In the gospels, Jesus reads from the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16), which indicates that he could read Hebrew. There are no other direct references to Jesus reading. There are lots of references to Jesus being well-learned in the Jewish scriptures, and expecting others to have read them, so it’s likely that he did it regularly. The Jewish scriptures were written in Hebrew and Aramaic.

Hebrew and Aramaic are pretty similar languages – much like Spanish and Italian today. They use the same alphabet and have a lot of overlap in vocabulary. Aramaic was the normal language spoken by Jews living in Israel at the time of Jesus, so it’s likely to have been Jesus’ first language. Hebrew was the language of religious worship, and as a Rabbi, it’s likely he would have been fluent.

So far, decent evidence for Jesus being able to read Hebrew and Aramaic. We’re told in John 8:6 that he wrote something in the sand; we’re not told what, but there’s no evidence that Jesus was skilled at using a quill. There are no other records of Jesus writing anything in any language.

Greek was the main language of the Roman forces who were occupying Israel at the time. It’s likely that Jesus could speak a bit of Greek – he certainly had conversations with Greek-speakers (e.g. Mark 7:26); some of his disciples (e.g. Philip who grew up in the bilingual town of Bethsaida) were clearly pretty much bilingual.

We don’t know anything about whether or not Jesus could write in Greek. We do know with a fair degree of certainty that Peter couldn’t; it seems that he got Mark to write down his memories of Jesus’ life (as the Gospel of Mark), and that he needed Silas’s help to write his first letter to the church (1 Peter 5:12).

The New Testament was almost entirely written in Greek, mostly by Christians who had grown up either as Jews in Greek-speaking areas (Paul) or as actual Greeks (Luke).

 

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