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1. Jennifer M. Dines, The Septuagint (New York: T&T Clark, 2004) 112-113.
Dines talks about how the koine Greek of the Old (LXX) and New Testaments appeared unsophisticated in antiquity. Origen (third century C.E.) defended the apostles’ “uneducated speech” (Dines’ words) against Celsus (second century C.E.), and the second century apologist Theophilus of Antioch referred to the charge that the prophets who wrote biblical books were “illiterate and shepherds and uneducated.” The Greek word translated “illiterate” in agrammatoi.
This brought to my mind Acts 4:13, in which the Jewish leaders perceive that the apostles Peter and John were “unlearned and ignorant men” (KJV). The word translated as “unlearned” is agrammatoi.
In my mind, there’s been the notion that the Bible says the apostles were illiterate, so they couldn’t have written the books in the New Testament that bear their names (e.g., Matthew and John, I Peter). When I was at DePauw, a Jewish student told me that the apostles couldn’t possibly have written the Gospels attributed to them, since the Gospels are so elegant, and the apostles were common people.
Actually, it turns out that “illiterate” (agrammatos) doesn’t necessarily mean “unable to read or write,” since the OT prophets wrote books, yet they were called agrammatoi. Rather, agrammatos can mean “unsophisticated in language,” not having a firm ability to express oneself with eloquence.
Were the Gospels like this? The Gospels were in koine Greek, the Greek of the common people, so Christian apologists felt compelled to defend them from charges of unsophistication. But they were probably written in that because they were intended to be understood by the common people (or non-elites). While the language of the Gospels may not be all that sophisticated, it does appear that there’s some sophistication going on in the Gospels’ composition: Matthew was able to draw from different versions of the Bible, for instance. The Gospels have literary structure and seek to make theological points. The Gospel writers had access to sayings and stories about Jesus. Would uneducated people be able to pull off the Gospels? Sure, wisdom and creativity don’t depend on education, but what about access to sources? Would an uneducated person have access to different versions of the Bible in those days?
I realize that scholars offer other reasons that the Gospels were not written by those who bore their names. But somewhere in my mind there was the argument that they didn’t write them because they were illiterate, or unsophisticated. I heard that from my Jewish friend at DePauw, and possibly in academia as well.
2. Folker Siegert, “Early Jewish Interpretation in a Hellenistic Style,” Hebrew Bible, Old Testament: The History of Interpretation I/1: Antiquity, ed. Magne Saebo (1996) 156.
Aristobulus was a Jewish philosopher during the second century B.C.E. Siegert characterizes Aristobulus’ position as follows:
In his answer Aristobulus first asserts that one must not always take Moses’ words at face value[,] since he may speak of other things…than what the words seem to mean. He blames those who just “cling to what is written”…and do not care whether there is anything admirable (=divine) in it.
I realize that Aristobulus is upholding an allegorical approach to Scripture over a literal hermeneutic, but Siegert’s statement leapt out to me for another reason. Are there readings of Scripture that “cling to what is written” without caring whether there’s anything admirable or divine in it? I think that certain academic approaches to the Bible can do this, as they focus on minutiae that are interesting only to a few and fail to inspire people. But I also think that certain fundamentalist approaches do this as well: they focus on proving the Bible inerrant and internally consistent, to the point that they can easily miss the spiritual meaning of the text. Both approaches can strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.
