Why Didn't Jesus Write Anything?
This question never really occupied my mind until I worked as a TA for an intro to Christian spirituality course filled with Sikh students. Time and again, each student would express complete shock that Christianity was founded on a person that left no writings. In their tradition, they follow the writings of ten gurus, and it was inconceivable that we could follow a man that left the transmission of his teaching to others.
As a Christian, it is simply part of my DNA that my beliefs about Christ are mediated by others. We have the biblical authors, traditions, theologians, scholars, mystics, and a wealth of over methods for encountering Christ. But to honest, the question as to why Jesus didn't write anything has been a nagging one for years.
There are different ways one can answer this question. The first, is that Jesus did write something and we simply don't have his work. In my opinion, this is the weakest answer because it's based entirely on silence. We have no evidence that the earliest Christian followers even believed Jesus wrote anything. The earliest transmission of the life and teaching of Jesus was almost certainly oral. People told stories in their Aramaic language about Jesus for decades before some highly educated individuals wrote these traditions down in Greek. In the ancient context of oral tradition, the result was a mix of history, legend, and experience. We have multiple attestations about Jesus but we lack the gold standard of knowing about the man - his own words.
The second response is that Jesus was capable of reading and writing (more on this below) but that he simply believed it was not important to write anything down. This follows the line of logic that Jesus believed the end of the age was about to occur and so he felt little compulsion to write anything. The earliest traditions of Jesus do imply he believed the end of the age was imminent, and so this approach does have a ring of logic to it. Theological issues notwithstanding, this would explain Jesus' sense of urgency and why he never left a written record of his teaching.
The third response is that Jesus was either completely illiterate or could only read at a basic level. We don't have any writings from Jesus because of the simple fact he couldn't write. This fits the historical context well. Jesus lived before the education reforms of Judaism after the destruction of the temple. As a labourer from Nazareth, Jesus would have had zero access to any kind of formal education. Nazareth was an unknown village with virtually no wealth. To me, this answer seems the most likely. The fact that Jesus grew up with no socio-economic advantages and was able to impact the world the way he did, is a testimony to his brilliance and character.
But this does raise an interesting point about the Christian movement. Jesus left his ministry for us to define and transmit in relationship with each other and the world. Jesus certainly left a mark on his followers that they were willing to proclaim an illiterate and crucified man to be the Messiah and saviour of the world. In the words of Paul, "Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe...For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."
