Was Jesus illiterate?

Mapping the US book deserts.
A percentage of homes with at least 100 books.
Interactive map can be found here.

Video version of this blog can be found here on YouTube.

 

Scholars and theologian are all but unanimous that Jesus and his Galilean disciples were almost certainly unable to read or write. But please, note that I did not call them illiterate! That would be a gross misrepresentation of their reality. Modern scholarship calls such people nonliterate.

            There is an important distinction between illiterate and nonliterate. Illiterate are people who had opportunity to learn reading and writing and yet had never done so. Meanwhile nonliterate persons are those who never had the chance to learn these skills because they lived in a society where hardly anyone could read or write. Such a setting is being described as preliterate society.

            In our world and time illiteracy often comes with a stigma, a value judgement about the person’s mental acuity. In the preliterate society inability to read and write was common and did not come with such a stigma.

            Literacy all around the Ancient Mediterranean world was about 5%. And our best estimates of literacy among the Jews living in Palestine (from Judea to Galilee) was hardly any larger. And those literate were members of an elite class, who almost certainly did not live in a Galilean rural hamlet like Nazareth. The setting of Jesus’ movement was indeed an oral,  preliterate society. And Jesus and his disciples’ inability to read did not mean they were stupid.

            On the contrary, anthropologists tell us that nonliteracy gave people some unique and special faculties. Preliterate oral cultures had a phenomenally better narrative memory. From my study of Hawaiian history and culture I am aware of early missionaries in Hawai’i reporting with  astonishment the ability of nonliterate locals to reliably memorize entire biblical books. And that has been reported all over the world.            Mental capacities of nonliteral peoples are not hindered by literacy. Their intellect is not under the spell of the written. They have a different, intuitive, and broader, more holistic, perception of reality.

            In addition and interestingly, to my best knowledge, all the main world religions were born in this twilight zone of literacy, inspired by nonliterate founders, and only later scriptualized - written down. In fact if Jesus and his first Galilean disciples were literate, it would had been a highly irregular and hence suspicious.

            The very fact that Jesus and his first disciples were nonliterate, the fact that there was a period of oral transmission, the fact that the Bible was written only about a generation or two later, all of it is an important factor which we normally do not fully appreciate but which was a contributing reason that we have Christianity and our New Testament Bible.  And that is something you might not know about the Bible.  

 

Join us this Sunday when we will discern and contemplate the only one New Testament story about reading Jesus (Luke 4:16ff). It might be a wishful projection of a highly educated evangelist, but exactly as a projection it still contains a beautiful and powerful message of divine love and respect for everyone, and especially for those left out and forgotten.

Revolution in Heaven

Nine classes of angels in three spheres depicted in a medieval manuscript.

Have you heard about the revolution in heaven? Have you heard how Jesus overthrew the heavenly hierarchy?

     First I need to explain the angelic hierarchy. The ancient polytheistic peoples were familiar with the notion of the divine court. Greeks situated it on Mt. Olympus. North West Semitic people looked up to Mt. Zaphon (modern Jebel Aqra). Of course the Hebrew Bible knew about Zaphon but there are also signs that Mt. Sinai, Mt. Zion or occasionally other mountains might play a similar role.

            A deepening process of monotheisation under the prophets like Isaiah or Jeremiah led to less interest in the divine court. But then, it found its way in again during the late biblical period under the influence of apocalyptic writings such as Ezekiel or Daniel. In this stage, what used to be deities were replaced with throngs and retinues of angels. The angelic hierarchy was imagined and structured according to Hellenistic Royal Courts. Later the rabbis organised angels into no less than 10 classes or ranks. But the Jewish angelic hierarchy stayed rather fluent and even a little chaotic. For instance different cabalistic schools could have one class of angels, for instance Seraphim, in the highest rank as well as lowest rank and anything in between, depending on the author.

            Roman Catholic medieval Scholasticism put angels in better order, probably inspired by needs of the medieval feudal church. Angels were organised in three large spheres and nine different classes. The highest sphere was for angels who were constantly in the presence of the divine and never left. Beneath them was the intermediary sphere of angelic functionaries mediating divine commands to the lower angelic sphere. The lowest angelic sphere was charged with execution of divine orders. Here were patrons of nations and royal houses, here were archangels in the second lowest class. Lower were only regular angels and the lowest of lowest of angels were the personal guardian angels, the blue collar angels, angelic proletarians. 

            Angelic hierarchy thus reflected medieval feudal structures of power but also represented the general human desire for order in the hierarchy of power. Image of heaven in Roman Church reflected medieval feudalism, in the Biblical times it reflected Hellenistic courts, among early Jews and pagans Zaphon, Sion or Olympus were perceived like Bronze Age royal palaces. (In heaven it was as it was on earth. When you think about it, it was the very opposite of one of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer.) 

            And then, Jesus, as was his well-established practice, turned this all upside down in one sentence.  Matthew 18:10 in my loose rendition - Don’t even think to disregard and neglect the powerless, I tell you, their guardian angels have direct access to God. (My loose translation.)

            The lowest, worldly, working angels, that angelic proletariat has direct access to God! That is revolution in heaven. As if Jesus said, Stop projecting your human corrupt power structures to heaven! Rather, change your human structures according to the egalitarian heavenly model which I bring and preach to you. 

            That is what I call the revolution in heaven. The overthrow of imaginary heavenly hierarchy and by the way the utter abrogation of heavenly and earthly feudalism or any other abusive power structures which humankind is so eager to create and recreate.

            The first are last and last are first in heaven! And the first will be last and the last will be first in bright divine future. And you should start living it out now.

 

And that is something you might not know about the Bible and Jesus’ radical angelology.

 

Video version of this article can be found on Rutgers Church YouTube. 

And here it is being explained to children in virtual Children Message