It's often suggested that the illiteracy or low level of literacy of the large majority of individuals in the ancient world is evidence against the traditional authorship attributions of the gospels. There are a lot of problems with that objection. We have information about people like Matthew and John that puts them well above the average person in antiquity. For example, not only was John an apostle, which would have provided him with far more motivation than the average person would have had to become more educated, but we also have good evidence that he lived an unusually long time and had a role as a sort of patriarchal figure toward the end of his life. Then there's the fact that there are widespread reports in antiquity that John did compose some documents, which is further evidence we have to take into account rather than just going by how many people in general would be able to produce such a document, how many fishermen in general would be able to, etc. We have much more than such statistics to go by.
Even if John couldn't write or couldn't write well enough to produce something like the fourth gospel, he could easily have gotten help to do it. In one of his earliest letters, Paul wrote, "you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me" (Galatians 4:15). There are a lot of examples in his letters of how he was assisted in one way or another by the people around him: receiving information from "Chloe's people" (1 Corinthians 1:11), writing letters with other individuals (1 Corinthians 1:1, 2 Corinthians 1:1, Galatians 1:1, Philippians 1:1, Colossians 1:1, 1 Thessalonians 1:1, 2 Thessalonians 1:1, Philemon 1), having somebody write a letter for him (Romans 16:22), having lodging provided for him (Philemon 22), having clothing and books brought to him (2 Timothy 4:13), etc. Or read the letters of Ignatius in the early second century, for example, where he often refers to the help he received or expected to receive from various individuals and churches. So, this isn't just a matter of what resources somebody like Paul, Ignatius, Matthew, or John had in isolation. Rather, it's a matter of what resources they had in the larger context of their lives, including among their fellow Christians, their relatives, the people those individuals knew, and so forth. Similarly, it's common in the modern world for people in a congregation to offer to help their pastor or other people in their church, coworkers to help each other, neighbors to offer assistance to one another, and so on.
I've seen skeptics claim that though John could have gotten help in producing a document like the fourth gospel, he would have needed too much help in order for it to be considered his gospel. But even if he didn't see the document or have it read to him until it was finished, then gave approval for it to be sent out under his name, it could still validly be considered his gospel. In the modern world, if a publisher thinks they can make money off of a book by a famous businessman, athlete, musician, or whoever, they'll offer whatever help is needed to get the book published, even if the famous person is a poor writer or doesn't want to write a book. They'll arrange to have a coauthor help him, have some editors work with him, or something else along those lines. If Matthew would be the first apostle to publish a gospel, and John would be able to supplement the other gospels and provide another biography of Jesus shortly before dying as the last apostle, their fellow Christians would have a lot of motivation to help them under those circumstances. Given John's apparent elderly status when he produced the fourth gospel, he probably would have expected and received help in some contexts at that stage of life. That could easily include literary contexts in one manner or another.
Most likely, there would have been some combination of the scenarios I've outlined here (as with Josephus in Against Apion 1:9). John probably lived for more than half a century as a Christian before the fourth gospel was published. In less than twenty years as a Christian, Paul's thinking was able to develop enough that he went from being a persecutor of the church to writing the letters we have today that are so deep in Christian theology, Christian interpretation of the Old Testament, illustrations of Christian belief, Christian argumentation, etc. If Paul's thinking developed so much in less than two decades between his conversion and his earliest extant letters, how much could John's thinking have developed over more than twice that much time, after having been one of Jesus' closest disciples for a few years, and so on? And it's not as though John would have had only his own thoughts, experiences, and such to draw from. He surely picked up some things from Jesus, Paul, and other individuals. For example, given Timothy's relative youth when Paul was writing his final letters, Timothy could easily still have been alive in Ephesus when John moved there. John may have been influenced to some extent by Paul's ideas expressed through Timothy or by Timothy's own thinking independent of Paul. The thinking behind the fourth gospel, its structure, its language, and its other characteristics could have come from a large number and variety of sources, not just John in isolation. Perhaps John's thinking and the thinking of others he was influenced by were combined with the contributions of one or more individuals who helped him compose his gospel. He oversaw the effort and gave approval for the document in its final form to go out under his name.
For more about the sort of help people often received when composing documents, see here and here.
Yes, I think we should be open to the idea that John and Matthew had amanuenses. I would say it's less likely with Mark, since Papias indicates that Mark was, in a sense, an amanuensis to Peter. So it would be creating an unnecessary chain to have an amenuensis of an amanuensis. And in the case of Luke I'm of the opinion that he was a fairly well-educated Gentile. One argument against this in the case of John is the very simple nature of the Greek. Normally one would expect an amenuensis to exercise his influence *particularly* on the style, yet John's Greek over-uses kai, eschews subordinating conjunctions, and has quite a Semitic flavor to it. If he did have an amanuensis, it was an unusual type who apparently tried to preserve the style of John's oral tellings. I suppose this is possible. Of course, the skeptical claim of strict illiteracy is based on fairly flimsy evidence anyway. One bad argument is the use of agrammatoi in Acts 4:13, which in itself can just mean that they hadn't received a formal rabbinic education. And how much could the priests tell from just hearing Peter and John speak? They seem to have made a major inference based upon their Galilean accent! (Galilee was a particularly despised region by the Jerusalem elite.) Since there was Greek signage in Israel at the time, apparently someone expected at least some part of the population to be able to read! So the whole question of how literate Jesus and/or some of the apostles were is very much up in the air. I do *not* think that the Gospel authors, with the possible exception of Luke, show any signs of having read and being familiar with secular Greek literature. A Palestinian Jewish boy's education for literacy in Greek could easily have been based on the Septuagint, and a statement in the Talmud attributes to a 1st-century BC rabbi a sharp distinction between a father's having his son educated in the Greek *language* and in Greek literature, philosophy, etc., with the latter being forbidden. It does behove us to know that, unfortunately, there's a theory floating around out there that the amanuenses would have suggested factual changes in the narrative itself, based on (alleged) ancient Greek fact-changing literary devices,. Thus far I have seen only Mike Licona suggest this theory. It appears to have been an ad hoc retreat on his part, after I pointed out the tension between traditional authorship and his notion of the use of highly specialized Greek literary devices. (I also question whether those devices even existed, but this is a further question.) Previously he stated outright that Matthew himself "would have" learned in school to use such devices. But more recently he has said that the amanuensis would have inserted them, changing the narrative, presumably (?) with Matthew's and John's approval. I probably don't need to say more about how implausible this is. It's particularly ridiculous in the case of John, due to the simplicity of the Greek that I mentioned above. We are presumably to imagine an amanuensis suggesting *factual* changes based on complex literary devices but leaving the *style* (which is preeminantly what he would be hired for) very simple! Anyway, I just thought I would mention that weird theory that is being spun off of the idea of an amanuensis or ghost writer of the Gospels. Of course I know that isn't what you're suggesting at all.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of problems with the skeptical appeal to Acts 4:13. In addition to what you mentioned, the comments in the passage were made probably a few decades before the time when John likely wrote his gospel, which allows for a lot of development in his (and others') interests, abilities, and such. And the comments in the passage are just about Peter and John, not other individuals who could have helped them in whatever ways were needed (an amanuensis, people who provided John with ideas to incorporate into his gospel, people who influenced his vocabulary, etc.). Acts 4:13 doesn't tell us as much as skeptics often suggest about John's abilities at the time, his abilities aren't the only relevant ones, since other people would have influenced him before he wrote his gospel and could have assisted him in composing it, and the passage is about a timeframe much earlier than when the gospel was written.
DeleteWhat about the influence and guidance of Mary the Mother of Jesus. John took Mary to live at his home after the crucifixion. How long was she there and surely they shared insights, notes, or diaries of daily events. Another example is Luke, the physician, who was not there yet has the most detailed account of the birth of Jesus. Who but Mary could have provided such an accurate account since Joseph was much older and died.
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