House Church Talk - New Testament era literacy rate

[David Anderson]

     Hi all,

Early literacy among Christians has been debated among those in the home 
church community. The alleged high rate of illiteracy was intended to 
prove that Christians had no need of Scripture, being unable to read. 

Here below is an extract from a recent article for you.

     David Anderson

Luke tells us that he sought out the most reliable sources when compiling 
his Gospel‹sources that "were delivered to us by those who from the 
beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" (Luke 1:2). We may 
assume that he could read notes made by eyewitnesses to Jesus¹ ministry. 
It is true that none of these sources survive, but the common currency of 
writing makes the assumption plausible.

The letters of Paul and others preserved in the New Testament prove 
writing was current in the early decades of the Church¹s existence, and 
the importance of written texts in the Church is evident from the number 
of papyrus fragments from the mid-second century A.D. onward found in 
Middle Egypt. There is no reason to believe the Egyptian Church was 
unique in having these written texts; their survival in Egypt is purely 
accidental. Other texts would have circulated across the Roman Empire and 
farther east.

It is not hard to imagine someone in first-century Israel coming home one 
day and writing out the memorable words he had just heard: "Blessed are 
those who mourn for they shall be comforted" (Mat thew 5:4) or "I and the 
Father are one" (John 10:30).

Jesus himself almost certainly knew how to read and write. He read from 
the scroll of Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue, according to Luke 
(4:16-17). He also quoted widely from the Jewish holy books. Yet he would 
rarely have needed to write. In fact, the only instance in the Gospels of 
Jesus writing occurs in the case of the woman caught in adultery; when 
she is brought before him, he writes some mysterious words on the ground 
with his finger (John 8:1-11).

It is sometimes said that a rabbinic rule forbade writing down a 
teacher¹s words or anything with religious content, apart from the 
Scriptures, lest other compositions be confused with the sacred texts. In 
fact, rabbinic sources did allow for written notes of a teacher¹s words 
to be kept on tablets. Now, a remarkable document from among the Dead Sea 
Scrolls, known as MMT (³Some Teachings of the Law²) upsets this supposed 
rule. MMT is written in the first person and contains the rulings of some 
unnamed authority. These rulings are said to contradict the tenets of 
another sect, a sect that can be identified with those who later became 
the dominant rabbis in Judaism. The attitude reflected in MMT is similar 
to the attitude of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: "You have heard it 
was said ... but I say to you" (Mat thew 5). A leading Dead Sea Scroll 
scholar does not doubt that the document was written at the time the 
rulings were made.

Clearly some devout Jews in the first century were happy to keep their 
teachers¹ words in writing. Actually, six copies of MMT existed at 
Qumran, showing it was a widely read book. Nor was Qumran the only place 
where the Essenes lived, read and wrote; Josephus says they were settled 
in large numbers in every town, so they were likely to have some of the 
Scriptures and their own writings with them in places all around Israel.

Some scholars contend, with Stephen Patterson, that "very few people 
could read or write [in Jesus' day]." § But such statements are no longer 
supported by the evidence. Not everyone could read and write. And some 
who could read were not necessarily able to write. But archaeological 
discoveries and other lines of evidence now show that writing and reading 
were widely practiced in the Palestine of Jesus' day. And if that is 
true, there is no reason to doubt that there were some eyewitness records 
of what Jesus said and did.

from: http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbba2904f1.html