The Jesus Seminar: A Brief Refutation of the Illiteracy Thesis

Before we begin this next run on the "Jesus Seminar" and its attendant radical scholarship tradition(s) -- I will be "selling short," so to speak -- on the particular idea they so much enjoy that the apostolic group, as well the Lord Jesus, were illiterate peasants (except for Paul). This was clearly NOT the case; in fact, the Lord chose such men as could write (at least some of them), and quite deliberately; and this makes no difference to the genuine authorship of the canon by apostles and prophets in any case. Here are some of the reasons why.

The Apostles were prophetic scribes.

Matthew 13 has the Lord preaching a series of parables of the kingdom, expounding just what the kingdom of heaven is like. It says he "spake MANY things to them in parables," but the apostles asked, "... Why speakest thou unto them [the people] in parables?" He answered and said unto them, "Because it is given unto you [apostles] to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given."

This teaching was holy, and not to be given to common people. "Do not give to the dogs what is holy," he instructed. This indicates that what they were here learning was unique and necessary to their holy office as apostles. When he had finished explaining these things, both from the prophets like Isaiah, and from many new things Jesus Himself was teaching the apostles, he said, [Matthew 13:52-53:]

"... Have ye understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, Lord. Then said he [the Lord Jesus] unto them, "Therefore [as a consequence of these teachings I have given you and the fact that you now understand them] every [apostolic] scribe which is instructed [by the Lord] unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder [supervisor], which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." [i.e. new and old treasures].

The Bible refers to itself under the label wisdom, constantly comparing lady wisdom to gemtones of various kinds to underscore the Bible's surpassing greatness. Here, the Lord pictures a storehouse filled with all manner of treasures, which correspond to understanding both the sayings of the prophets, and of those spoken by the Lord [Old and New Testament teachings]. He had just instructed the apostles and then spoke of scribes being instructed in the things of the kingdom of heaven. To miss the immediate parable's application, you would probably need a Ph.D. in psychology.

The well-instructed apostles are the well-instructed scribes, who when fully trained by Jesus can expound the treasures of the Older and Newer Testaments. Thus, says Solomon, "lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel." The Lord Jesus then fully expected that the apostles would do with his teachings what scribes do -- write them down (This is why we can read about what Jesus told the apostles).

Conspicuously, the Lord Jesus chose to write down no Scripture personally. There are good reasons for this, chief of which is -- given what we know about the propensity of people to chase "holy Tortillas," and see haystacks burn in the form of a flaming John Paul II -- had the Lord Jesus penned even one line, doubtless the mindless hordes would be bowing down to a very small piece of dominical paper somewhere. Look what pedestal they have given His earthly mother, which she never wanted, and would have dismissed as barbaric idolatry. This may also be just the reason why God in His wisdom permitted the existence of even none of the original autographs of the Bible as well, but only very reliable copies (by the hands of scribes).

So when the Lord Jesus commissioned the apostles, He appointed them not only as the authoritative defenders of the faith he delivered once for all to the saints in light of their teaching and preaching, but He also commissioned them as prophetic scribes to write this down. This "inscripturation" of what He personally, and later by His Holy Spirit, taught them was part and parcel of the apostolic office from the beginning. Crossan is here badly mistaken on his illiteracy thesis, since illiteracy and scribes do not go together very well. This aspect of the apostolic office was not an afterthought arising from the occasions generating the particular details found in the Gospels accounts.

The Lord had ordained their writings for the Church long ago. The apostolic office we know was prophesied from of Old in several ways. The NT quotes the Psalms regarding Judas, "Let another take his office [place]," and prefigures Judas in persons like Ahithophel, a man of extraordinary spiritual gifts who turned against King David, one of the older Testaments pre-eminent "types" of Christ.

Second, while Saul, son of kish, persecutes David relentlesssly (without cause), we see a prophesied reversal of this trend in the NT, with the conversion of the "other" Saul. Both Sauls, quite interestingly, hailed from the tribe of Benjamin, the only tribe together with Judah (the tribe of both David and Jesus) to escape the desolation of the ten tribes at the hands of Assyria (in 721 B.C., they were hauled off as slaves, killed and their cities burned). This was the Northern part of Israel, Samaria.

Judah and Benjamin had intertwined (prophetic) destinies. We know this in 721 B.C. We did not know that Saul II would turn out to be the man who shook the Mediterranean for the sake of Judah. As much as Saul I had persecuted David, so Saul incurred persecution for the Son of David, king of Israel.

We also know that the 12 tribes of Israel themselves prefigured the apostles, who simply came to be called "The Twelve." These may also be the likely prophetic referent of the 120 silver trumpets created by Solomon for the Temple service. Just as God had chosen Israel, so Christ had hand-picked these 12 and their followers to be "a royal priesthood" and "A holy nation" (1 Peter 2:8-10). Likewise, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God has their names written on its foundations, with its twelve gates. The point could scarcely be made clearer that the apostolic Church is the New Israel. The events of A.D. 7o also provided a helpful hint from above.

We should also note that the office of a prophet seemed usually to include writing Scripture, though not in every case. Nevertheless, it was typical of the office that it also included scribal duties. The NT reflects back on these men on several occasions, and sees their writing as an ordinary function of their role as prophets. They even knew, Paul says, that they "wrote for us, upon whom the end of the age has come," meaning that the Older Testment prophets wrote for the Newer Testament saints, and for the apostles.

Now the apostolic office was by far the greatest in the NT, followed by that of the prophet. Since all the higher offices contain all the lower, we know that the apostles each were prophets, and that there were prophets who were not apostles -- such as Luke, Matthew, Mark, Barbabas and the like. The Evangelists (a specialized office something like a deputized apostle) also were prophets. Four only are named: Philip, Epaphroditus (Epaphras in one variant), Titus, and Timothy, Paul's friend. He is called "man of God," the typical Older Testament way of referring to a prophet, as in "Moses, the man of God." Paul says to him, "But you, O man of God, flee youthful lusts, and "that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped..."

These are the four wheels of the chariots in Ezekiel's vision at his ordination (chapter 1) and the four "beasts" (Gk. "zoon" which translates oddly as something like "animals," or "living creatures" in the context of Revelation) nearest the throne of God. All the apostles were Evangelists also (This makes 16 that we know of -- or 4 x 4).

The "fours" keep showing up because the Evangelists were sent to the "four winds" -- that is to every nation - which is the symbology of the Word. Outside these from the throne a circle forms of the 24 elders, who sing Psalms with harps (like David), which are called "New Songs" (as the Psalms self-refer, as in [Psalm 96:1] "Oh sing a New Song to the Lord ...").

I will not belabor the point further that the OT foretells the apostolic office -- with its scribal duties -- by way of both explicit prophesy and also by types and shadows. This had to be the case since the apostles were directly appointed by Christ as the beginning of the New Israel. Both Christ and the Church appear in prophecy, for they are inextricably linked by way of the eternal covenant.

The fact that the Lord Jesus appeared to John in the Book of Revelation, saying "Write," shows that this was a normal part of their extraordinary duties. John was literate. Obviously, so was Paul, who wrote letters with "wisdom from God" (2 Peter 3:16). So were all the others. Even if they had not been, this would have made little difference, since it was the ordinary custom of people in that day to employ the services of a secretary -- called an "amanuensis" (Say "Uh MAN u en SISS" -- or just ignore this pathetically large and overly Greek word) -- to take scribal dictation and forward the document to the appropriate person or group for a fee.

The NT writers were still the authors of the texts so dictated or written, as was sometimes done. This is obvious with the book of Hebrews for instance, since the Christian scribe who penned it adds his own comments to the end of the sermon, as they would often do. This kind of thing was also done in the case of the Older Testament, where, for instance, Joshua finished the Torah penned by Moses, describing the death of his mentor and the relevant facts immediately following. The NT apostles and prophets added nothing new to their chronicling traditions not already present in the OT historiographic trends, with the exception of the fact that the apostolic office itself was new -- and so functioned to guarantee the "Jesus traditions" in ways not before possible. As with the joke about the Jewish nation being a people "just like everyone else only more so," we can say that this was just like the "chronicling prophets" OT historiography, only more so. The safe-guarding mechanism had much greater efficacy because of both the new circumstances -- Churches growing up quickly would serve as a checks and balance system for correcting straying doctrines or liturgical practices. The many apostles all being taught by one man the same things would serve as a self-correcting mechanism on the apodosis also.

The importance of the phrase, "It is written," in both Testaments cannot be overstated. Only when prophetic revelation had been written down could it be made more public and permanent so that one could CHECK to see if what another said was so -- see the Bereans. The Lord Jesus spoke this way very often, having such a high regard for the Scripture that it can hardly be that one might suppose he did not command his apostles likewise as He did John in the Revelation.

He gave them the Holy Spirit to enable them to recall all things he had spoken to them, and gave them the apostolic office, which would eventually by its writings as much as its preaching form the foundation of the Church together with prophets like Luke, Mark, Jude and Timothy (who wrote, or preached and had transcribed, the book of Hebrews). Luke's interesting introductory phrase, "it seemed good to me also" does not in any way mean that he had not the general apostolic approval for his work, or that he did it on a whim with no warrant.

Finally, we come to a variant text, part of John 8, where we find Jesus writing in the sand with his finger. Yes, it is a variant, and yes it comes from a Gospel the radical scholars consider very "late," because they are unable to recogize the extreme "Jewishness" of John's Gospel, starting with a mimicking of Genesis 1:1-3. John portrays Jesus as the "light of men," "light of the world" and the like. This hearkens back to God's command "let there be light," and forward to the resurrection of Christ, where he shines (literally) like the early light of Genesis, for both Jew and Gentile -- as Isaiah says, "A light to the nations."

The simple fact is that all the early Christians believed that Jesus could write, and that this was not a matter of controversy, but an incidental detail of the text in question.

The text (vv. 3-9) says, "And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst."

Now many have speculated as to just what the Lord may have been writing, but that is irrelevant for our purposes. The point here is that no one considered it controversial or doubtful that Jesus could write. The Greek verb is the same one always used for ordinary writing. This "pericope" makes a moral point, one about the law, its right application, mercy, and the accusers. The writing is about as incidental and nonessential to the account as one might imagine. The only plausible reason for this to be in the account is that this is just what Jesus did. He wrote.

I regard this -- though much more could be said in favor of the biblical "literacy thesis" -- as sufficient proof for the position since the contrary to the biblical worldview is logically impossible and that the literacy of Jesus and the apostles generally was never questioned until many centuries later.

The Christian worldview alone provides the necessary preconditions for things such as objective criteria, the many forms of reasoning needed for historical investigation (induction, theoretical adduction and deductive inferences, etc), source analysis, cultural analogies, archaeological assumptions about time, and the entourage of other assumptions necessarily linked to these. This is why its rejection -- as with the Seminar -- leads to the inability to establish non-arbitrary and inter-referentially coherent criteria for judging the historicity or authenticity of past alleged sayings and deeds of historical actors.

Nor does it appear anywhere that the earliest of the Church fathers (a.k.a. the patristics) considered it other than what the early Christians believed. They all thought Jesus and the apostles could read and write. The "illiteracy thesis," simply comes far too late in the game for any sort of real credibilty, and contradicts much biblical evidence to the contrary. The Seminar's persistent ignoring of the internal evidence of the biblical record stems (again) from its insistence upon "methodological skepticism," a point already refuted systematically.

Thus the arbitrary and -- counting the prior critique of their stated criteriology - self-refuting nature of the claims contrary to the biblical "literacy thesis" once more instance the impossibility of the contrary in favor of the biblical outlook. I have no doubt, that, should they ever choose to take my own critique seriously (consider that a double-dog dare in print), one of more of their disciples of the future will critique this post arguing that I was, in fact, not literate.

And given that I am not literate, on the basis of methodological skepticism, I quite obviously could not have written this. And so the analysis goes.