Hi
The illiteracy of the Bible heroes!
We do not need to go back millennia, or even several centuries, to know that illiteracy was rife in the UK, in the early 1800s. Of course, there were university such as Oxford in the 13-century, and education was largely limited to charity schools and “free grammar schools” that were open to children of religious beliefs. The 19th century saw reforms expanding education provision and introducing widespread state-funded schools, with compulsory education introduced for children aged 5-10 in the 1880s. That was just 140 years ago, two millennia ago the story was different.
The ancient Greek biblical manuscripts (Mss) tell of the ignorance, and the illiterateness of the disciples, as well that of Jesus. Yet, today, evangelical Christians dispute this biblical fact, that their God and disciples, were as the Greek Mss put it—illiterate ιδιωται/idiots. I have no problem with illiteracy of that time, and I am quite sure that the vast majority of biblical scholars have no problem with illiterate bible personages. In that era, probably only 1.5% of the people of any nation at the time were literate. Today, literacy is probably 99% in most developed countries, such as North America, Europe, Japan, and Australasia. Some rich developing countries will have high education standards, but those with religious biased against females education will be poor, and would compare with the education standard of the early biblical era.
So who wrote the bible? Well, it was not the named disciples/apostles, but anonymous Greek-speaking scholars. Paul /Saul of Tarsus was probably one of the earliest of what we wrongly call Christian writers, who was disliked, and even called the enemy by the original followers of Jesus, the Ebionites/the Poor. Who we know from Celsus, a Pagan philosopher, were ignorant illiterates.
But what of Paul/Saul, who claimed to be Jewish, and educated by the then Judaean scholars Gamaliel. Acts 22:3.
Gamaliel was a famous Hebrew scholar in his day. As well as being a scholar of the Sanhedrin Law. However, Paul’s epistles were all written in
Greek, not
Hebrew, let alone
Aramaic, the language that was spoken, along with Greek where his parents were from. (See
Gichala below.) The
Ebionites (early Christians) claimed that Paul was not a learned Jew, but a
Greek. [
Epiphanius, Panarion, 30.16. 6–9]. Yet,
Philippians 3:5-6, Romans 11:1, and 2 Corinthians 11:22, explicitly identify Paul as a Jew! Paul was a
false apostle tentmaker, a liar, and an illiterate, who used
amanuenses to write for him, and whose alias was
Simon.
What do you say about part or all of the discussion?
Cofion.
Jero Jones
Article URL : https://breakingnewsandreligion.online/discuss/
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