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The Claim of John 7.15 and the Memory of Jesus' Literacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2009

Chris Keith
Chris Keith
Affiliation:
Lincoln Christian University, 100 Campus View Drive, Lincoln, IL 62656, USA email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article argues that John 7.15 claims neither literacy nor illiteracy for Jesus, but rather that Jesus was able to confuse his opponents with regards to his scribal literacy. According to the Johannine narrator, Jesus' opponents assumed he did not ‘know letters’, but also acknowledged that he taught as if he did. This article also suggests that the claim of John 7.15 is historically plausible in light of first-century Christianity's corporate memory(ies) of Jesus' literacy.

Keywords

John 7.15literacyhistorical Jesussocial memory
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 44 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 On this topic, see especially Goodman, M. D., ‘Texts, Scribes and Power in Roman Judaea’, Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (ed. Bowman, Alan K. and Woolf, Greg; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1994) 99–108Google Scholar, as well as Robin Lane Fox, ‘Literacy and Power in Early Christianity’, in the same volume, 126–48.

2 Meier, John P., A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (3 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1991)Google Scholar 1.268: ‘But in an oral culture, one could theoretically be an effective teacher, especially of ordinary peasants, without engaging in reading or writing’. Cf. Keener, Craig S., The Gospel of John: A Commentary (2 vols.; Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003) 1.712 n.86Google Scholar.

3 More broadly on the power of literates in illiterate cultures with a holy text, see the well-known study of Stock, Brian, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University, 1983)Google Scholar.

4 Schwartz, Seth, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (JCM; Princeton: Princeton University, 2001) 74Google Scholar (emphasis added).

5 Harris, William V., Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1989) 22Google Scholar. Further, ‘[It is] unlikely that the overall literacy of the western provinces even rose into the range of 5–10%’ (272).

6 Hezser, Catherine, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (TSAJ 81; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001) 496Google Scholar.

7 Carr, David M., Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (New York: Oxford University, 2005) 116Google Scholar (cf. 270 n.51), generally, 111–73; Horsley, Richard A., Scribes, Visionaries, and the Politics of Second Temple Judea (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007) 8–9Google Scholar, 211 n. 27; van der Toorn, Karel, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2007) 10–11Google Scholar.

8 Inter alia, H. Gamble, ‘Literacy and Book Culture’, The Dictionary of New Testament Background (ed. Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter; Downers Grove: InterVarsity) 645.

9 On Jewish and Christian ‘text-brokers’, see Snyder, H. Gregory, Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World: Philosophers, Jews and Christians (RFCC; New York: Routledge, 2000) 122–217Google Scholar.

10 Although the question is posed in this manner here in light of previous scholarly debates, discussed immediately in the main text, it is imprecise since literacy existed in gradations and John 7.15 is particularly concerned with scribal literacy. See below p. 52.

11 Bond, Helen K., Caiaphas: Friend of Rome and Judge of Jesus? (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004) 69Google Scholar.

12 Thatcher, Tom, Jesus the Riddler: The Power of Ambiguity in the Gospels (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006) 136, 107Google Scholar, respectively.

13 Chilton, Bruce, Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography (New York: Doubleday, 2000) xxGoogle Scholar.

14 Crossan, John Dominic, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1994) 25Google Scholar. See also his The Essential Jesus: What Jesus Really Taught (New York: HarperCollins, 1989) 21.

15 Deissmann, Adolf, Light from the Ancient East (London: Hodder & Stoughton, rev. ed. 1927) 245Google Scholar, also p. 246. Jesus' failure to leave written material remains was a point of discussion already in the early Church. Cf. Augustine's refutation of the Manichaean Epistle of Christ in Faust 28.4.

16 Luke's text does not technically claim that Jesus did read; only that he stood in order to do so. Additionally, the text Jesus purportedly reads has no manuscript evidence, as it is a compilation of Isa 61.1–2a and 58.6. As I have suggested elsewhere, it may be that Luke clearly thinks Jesus capable of reading from a Hebrew text in the synagogue, but stops just short of claiming that he actually did so (see Keith, Chris, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus [NTTSD 38; Leiden: Brill, 2009] 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

17 Strauss, Mark L., Four Portraits, One Jesus: An Introduction to Jesus and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007) 421Google Scholar. One major problem with Strauss's statement is that ‘most Jewish boys’ did not receive a formal education. See Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 67–8; relatedly, Harris, Ancient Literacy, 281–2.

18 Bernard, J. H., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel of John (ed. McNeile, A. H.; 2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928) 2.719Google Scholar.

19 Cadoux, C. J., The Life of Jesus (Gateshead on Tyne: Pelican, 1948) 37Google Scholar.

20 Lee, Bernard J., The Galilean Jewishness of Jesus: Retrieving the Jewish Origins of Christianity (New York: Paulist, 1988) 126–7Google Scholar.

21 David Flusser with Notley, R. Steven, The Sage from Galilee: Rediscovering Jesus' Genius (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 4th Eng. ed. 2007) 12Google Scholar.

22 For a brief presentation of the opinions of the nineteenth-century questers, see Foster, Paul, ‘Educating Jesus: The Search for a Plausible Context’, JSHJ 4.1 (2006) 7–9Google Scholar. Strangely, given the topic of the book, Horne, Herman, Jesus the Teacher: Examining his Expertise in Education (rev. Gunn, Angus M.; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1998)Google Scholar, does not address the issue at all.

23 Some examples are Craffart, Pieter F. and Botha, Pieter J. J., ‘Why Jesus Could Walk on the Sea but He Could Not Read and Write’, Neotestamentica 39.1 (2005) 21–31Google Scholar; Dunn, James D. G., Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 212–5Google Scholar; Evans, Craig A., ‘Jewish Scripture and the Literacy of Jesus’, From Biblical Criticism to Biblical Faith: Essays in Honor of Lee Martin McDonald (ed. Brackney, William H. and Evans, Craig A.; Macon: Mercer University, 2007) 41–54Google Scholar; Foster, ‘Educating Jesus’, 7–33; Meier, Marginal Jew, 1.252–315; Riesner, Rainer, Jesus als Lehrer: Eine Untersuchung zum Ursprung der Evangelien-Überlieferung (WUNT 2.7; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981) 206–45Google Scholar; Strauss, David Friedrich, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (ed. Hodgson, Peter C.; London: SCM, 1972) 201–5Google Scholar.

24 See n. 70 below.

25 These texts are especially important for Crossan, Jesus, 23–6.

26 Some of the following information is rehearsed in an abbreviated manner in Keith, Pericope, 152–7.

27 Foster, ‘Educating Jesus’, 17–19.

28 Foster, ‘Educating Jesus’, 18, in reference to Evans, Craig A., ‘Context, Family, and Formation’, The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (ed. Bockmuehl, Markus; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2001) 16Google Scholar.

29 Foster, ‘Educating Jesus’, 18.

30 Evans, ‘Context’, 16, 21; Keener, Craig S., IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993) 282Google Scholar. Keener is more cautious in his Gospel of John, 1.712–3. Evans revisits the topic in the more recent Evans, ‘Jewish Scripture’, and rearticulates the same position on John 7.15 (for example, 42–43). This latter publication is in response to Craffert and Botha, ‘Why Jesus’, who, surprisingly, despite mentioning John 7.15 in their abstract (5) and once briefly as a claim that Jesus ‘could write’ (22) allow it no place in their discussion on Jesus' (il)literacy (21–32), which instead focuses upon Luke 4.16.

31 Riesner, Jesus als Lehrer, 243.

32 Meier, Marginal Jew, 1.269; also, 278. Regarding the Jews' comment being a ‘demeaning reference’ (as stated by Meier), Kraus, Thomas J., ‘John 7:15B: “Knowing Letters” and (Il)literacy’, Ad Fontes: Original Manuscripts and Their Significance for Studying Early Christianity—Selected Essays (TENTS 3; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 171–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that the Jews' statement is unbiased—‘No pejorative emphasis is put on social status or any lack of education’ (180–81). Below, I will argue that Kraus is not correct in terms of the broader context of John 7, especially in light of 7.49.

33 Meier, Marginal Jew, 1.269.

34 Meier, Marginal Jew, 1.271.

35 Bauer, D. Walter, Das Johannesevangelium (HNT 6; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2d ed. 1925) 105Google Scholar.

36 Gerhardsson, Birger, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (combined ed. with Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 13Google Scholar.

37 Foster, ‘Educating Jesus’, 19. He cites approvingly Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 314 n. 280.

38 Foster, ‘Educating Jesus’, 19.

39 Keith, Pericope, 62–89.

40 Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 68–89, grants warrant to Thackeray's translation, as her study shows that Torah reading was the focus of Jewish education, not writing. Similarly, Goodman, ‘Texts’, 99–100.

41 For example, P. Yadin 15.35–36; 16.35; 22.34. For texts, see Lewis, Naphtali et al. , eds., The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Greek Papyri (JDS; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1989)Google Scholar.

42 P. Yadin 15.35–36.

43 Meier, Marginal Jew, 1.269; Craffert and Botha, ‘Why Jesus’, 22, respectively.

44 Harris, Ancient Literacy, 6.

45 Harris, Ancient Literacy, 7–8. Fox, ‘Literacy and Power’, 129, refers to this as ‘sacred literacy’; van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 11, calls it ‘high literacy’; and Goody, Jack, The Interface Between the Written and the Oral (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1987) 139Google Scholar, speaks of ‘religious literacy’.

46 Thus, Bultmann, Rudolf, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971) 273Google Scholar, interprets the Jews' astonishment: ‘How can Jesus appeal to the Scriptures! He has not made a proper study of them! He does not belong to the guild of the Scribes’. One should note, however, that scribes appear in John only in the later textual addition of John 7.53–8.11 (at John 8.3).

47 Cf. Meier, Marginal Jew, 1.269.

48 Barrett, C. K., The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction and Commentary with Notes on the Greek Text (London: SPCK, 2d ed. 1978) 317Google Scholar; Bultmann, Gospel of John, 273 n. 3; Carson, D. A., The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991) 311Google Scholar; Hoskyns, Edwyn Clement, The Fourth Gospel (ed. Davey, Francis Noel; London: Faber & Faber, 2d ed. 1947) 314Google Scholar; Keener, Gospel of John, 1.712; Moloney, Francis J., Signs and Shadows: Reading John 5–12 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) 75Google Scholar.

49 For the importance of the narrator and his point of view, see Chatman, Seymour, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1978) 148–51, 196–262Google Scholar; on John specifically, Culpepper, R. Alan, The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 15–49Google Scholar. Since there is no indication that the implied author's point of view in John is different from that of the narrator, it is unnecessary to distinguish between the two for present purposes. Cf. Chatman, Story, 148–51; Culpepper, Anatomy, 15–18.

50 Foster, ‘Educating Jesus’, 19.

51 On the possibility of the Jews' statement here being an example of Johannine irony, since Jonah was from Galilee, see Keener, Gospel of John, 1.734–5.

52 NA27 follows the majority of witnesses with the indefinite reading προϕήτης; P66 offers the definite reading ὁ προϕήτης.

53 Similarly, Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, 314: ‘To the Jewish authorities Jesus is one of the ignorant crowd which is accursed and knoweth not the law (vii. 49)’ (emphasis original).

54 For succinct introductions to social/cultural memory, see Assmann, Jan, ‘Introduction: What is “Cultural Memory”?’ Religion and Cultural Memory (CMP; Stanford: Stanford University, 2006) 1–30Google Scholar; Kirk, Alan, ‘Social and Cultural Memory’, Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (ed. Kirk, Alan and Thatcher, Tom; SemSt 52; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005) 1–24Google Scholar. With particular reference to the Jesus tradition, see Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher, ‘Jesus Tradition as Social Memory’, Memory, Tradition, and Text (ed. Kirk and Thatcher) 25–42; Donne, Anthony Le, ‘Theological Distortion in the Jesus Tradition: A Study in Social Memory Theory’, Memory in the Bible and Antiquity (ed. Stuckenbruck, Loren T., Barton, Stephen C., and Wold, Benjamin G.; WUNT 212; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007) 163–77Google Scholar; Schröter, Jens, ‘The Historical Jesus and the Sayings Tradition: Comments on Current Research’, Neot 30.1 (1996) 151–68Google Scholar. For fuller applications to the Jesus tradition, see Schröter, Jens, Erinnerung an Jesu Worte: Studien zur Rezeption der Logienüberlieferung in Markus, Q und Thomas (WMANT 76; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1997)Google Scholar and two new studies: Donne, Anthony Le, The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David (Waco: Baylor University, 2009)Google Scholar; Rodriguez, Rafael, Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance, and Text (LNTS; London: T. & T. Clark, 2009)Google Scholar. Despite the title, Dunn, Jesus Remembered, is not an application of social/cultural memory theory, although he arrives at many conclusions similar to the above-referenced scholars and will thus be included here. He deals with the implications of social memory theory for his own work in James D. G. Dunn, ‘Social Memory and the Oral Jesus Tradition’, Memory in the Bible and Antiquity (ed. Stuckenbruck, Barton, and Wold) 179–94.

55 See especially Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 130–2; Dunn, James D. G., A New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed (London: SPCK, 2005) 30–1Google Scholar.

56 Le Donne, ‘Theological Distortion’, 166. ‘Distort’ here carries no negative connotations but rather refers to the fact that the past can only ever be interpreted through the lens of the present (p. 167).

57 See here the trenchant criticism of gospel scholarship in this regard by social memory theorist Barry Schwartz, ‘Christian Origins: Historical Truth and Social Memory’, Memory, Tradition, and Text (ed. Kirk and Thatcher) 50–4.

58 The past has a particularly impactful role in the commemoration of violence. See Keith, Chris and Thatcher, Tom, ‘The Scar of the Cross: The Violence Ratio and the Earliest Christian Memories of Jesus’, Jesus, the Voice, and the Text: Beyond the Oral and the Written Gospel (ed. Thatcher, Tom; Waco: Baylor University, 2008) 197–214Google Scholar; Alan Kirk, ‘The Memory of Violence and the Death of Jesus in Q’, Memory, Tradition, and Text (ed. Kirk and Thatcher) 191–206.

59 Schröter, Erinnerung, 483 (emphasis removed). Cf. Kirk and Thatcher, ‘Jesus Tradition’, 39.

60 Le Donne, ‘Theological Distortion’, 165. Similarly, Schröter, ‘Historical Jesus’, 153: ‘Every approach to the historical Jesus behind the Gospels has to explain how these writings could have come into being as the earliest descriptions of this person’.

61 McKnight, Scot and Modica, Joseph B., eds., Who Do My Opponents Say That I Am?: An Investigation of the Accusations Against Jesus (LHJS/LNTS 327; London: T. & T. Clark, 2008)Google Scholar.

62 Theissen, Gerd and Winter, Dagmar, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002) 212Google Scholar.

63 See n. 16 above.

64 Also mentioned in n. 16 above, there is no manuscript evidence for the cited passage in Luke 4.18–19.

65 Cf. Marshall, I. Howard, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978) 179Google Scholar.

66 Following, inter alia, א B C D. P45 most probably reads ὁ τοῦ τκτονος υἱός. Cf. Kannaday, Wayne C., Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition: Evidence of the Influence of Apologetic Interests on the Text of the Canonical Gospels (SBLTCS 5; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004) 118Google Scholar.

67 Josephus makes a similar claim regarding himself in Vita 9.

68 Marshall, Gospel of Luke, 127–8.

69 Similarly, Green, Joel B., The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 155Google Scholar n. 10.

70 Some may also cite passages like Mark 2.25 as evidence that Jesus himself could or did read the passages he references. So Evans, ‘Jewish Scripture’, 50: ‘But Jesus' rhetorical and pointed “have you not read?”…would have little argumentative force if he himself could not read’. These passages are not included in the present discussion, however, because they do not necessitate that Jesus could read or was a member of the scribal guild. In fact, the rhetorical force of the question could hinge on the fact that Jesus was not able to read the passage—‘Surely you, the literate elite Torah teachers, have read such and such a text…why even I, not one of your own, know the passage that says…’ Cultural knowledge of the contents of a text does not necessarily require literate access to the text.

71 Matt 13.55 has Jesus' hometown crowd identify him as ‘the son of the artisan/carpenter’ rather than ‘the artisan/carpenter’. The Palestinian Syriac manuscript tradition omits ὁ τκτων altogether. See Metzger, Bruce M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2d ed. 2000) 75–6Google Scholar.

72 France, R. T., The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 242Google Scholar, on the derogatory οὗτος.

73 Cf. France, Gospel of Mark, 102.

74 Johnson, Luke Timothy, The Acts of the Apostles (SP 5; Collegeville: Liturgical, 1992), 13Google Scholar, claims, ‘In the present case, the epithet [ἰδιῶται] may bear some of the implications of the Pharisaic distinction between the Associate and the ´am-ha´ ares’. In addition to commentary discussions, see Thomas J. Kraus, ‘“Uneducated”, “Ignorant”, or Even “Illiterate”? Aspects and Background for an Understanding of ΑΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΟΙ (and ΙΔΙΩΤΑΙ) in Acts 4.13’, Ad Fontes, 149–70; and particularly Allen Hilton, ‘The Dumb Speak: Early Christian Illiteracy and Pagan Criticism’ (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1997). Evans, ‘Jewish Scripture’, 53–4, cites Jesus' status as a rabbi who teaches followers as contributing towards an argument that Jesus was literate. The implication of the present argument is that Acts 4.13, which Evans treats on p. 43, points in the opposite direction.

75 Eusebius Eccl. hist. 1.13.5; Narrative of Joseph of Arimathea 3.4, respectively. It is possible that dictation is in view, but neither specifies the usage of an amanuensis and thus they are open to the interpretation that Jesus authors the letters himself. On a fifth-century version of the Abgar legend in the Doctrina Addai that does specify an amanuensis, see Drijvers, H. J. W., ‘The Abgar Legend’, New Testament Apocrypha (ed. Schneemelcher, Wilhelm; 2 vols.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, rev. ed. 1991) 1.493Google Scholar.

76 Origen Cels. 6.36, 1.62 (Chadwick), respectively. On the topic of pagan criticism of Christian illiteracy, see Hilton, ‘Dumb Speak’, regrettably unpublished.

77 Crossan, Jesus, 23–6; Kelber, Werner H., The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1983) 18Google Scholar. Kelber claims the transition of portrayals of Jesus went from Mark (less scribal) to Matt (rabbinic scribal).

78 Space prohibits further investigation, but I regard it as possible that, at Luke 4.16–20, Luke remembers Jesus in imago Pauli, as Paul likely would have been able to enter a synagogue and read from a scroll. As the above makes clear, however, this was because certain aspects of Jesus' own teaching career enabled remembering him as such.

79 Youtie, Herbert C., ‘Βραδως γράϕων: Between Literacy and Illiteracy’, GRBS 12.2 (1971): 239–61Google Scholar; repr. in his Scriptiunculae II (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1973) 629–51.

80 This claim about the Johannine narrative does not ignore the otherwise well-attested presence of ‘semi-literates’ in the Greco-Roman world. To the contrary, the text implies that, like semi-literates, Jesus was able to straddle the line between literacy and illiteracy. The further claim of the Johannine narrative, however, is that in the particular form of scribal literacy found in Second Temple Judaism, which centered on the law, semi-literacy was uncommon. In John, one either has scribal literacy or does not; thus the paradox of the Jesus of John 7.15 for his opponents. On semi-literates, see Youtie, ‘Βραδως’, 239–61.