The Claim of John 7.15 and the Memory of Jesus' Literacy

Abstract

This article argues that John 7.15 claims neither literacy nor illiteracy for Jesus, but rather that Jesus was able to confuse his opponents with regards to his scribal literacy. According to the Johannine narrator, Jesus' opponents assumed he did not ‘know letters’, but also acknowledged that he taught as if he did. This article also suggests that the claim of John 7.15 is historically plausible in light of first-century Christianity's corporate memory(ies) of Jesus' literacy.