The Education of Jesus

There are passages in the Bible which may lead us to assume that Jesus was uneducated. However, a thorough knowledge of the educational system in Galilee, along with a clearer understanding concerning the cultural prejudices in Jesus’ day, may help us to see where the New Testament reveals Jesus’ scholarship.

When we read passages like John 1:46 along with Acts 2:7, which question anything good coming out of Galilee and then points out that the disciples are all from Galilee, it’s possible that these statements reflect the kinds of biases that exist in many communities where loyalty to a location brings out competitive ridicule against those in another location. We do this today between High schools, football teams, colleges, cities. One officer told me that when he drives through Auburn, Alabama, he washes his car at the first car wash he comes to after leaving the city, because he doesn’t want any Auburn dust on his car.

The Judeans probably thought of themselves as sophisticated and cultured, while they looked upon the Galileans as uneducated bumpkins. The irony in this is that it was actually Galilee that had more exposure to other cultures, while Judea’s geographical location was more shielded from the outside world. Galilee had many urbanized communities and Judea was largely made up of a rural environment.It doesn’t help us remove our beliefs about Jesus lack of education when we read such passages as John 7:15 which reports of some Jews who were amazed at the teaching of Jesus, considering that he hadn’t studied. However, the importance and quality of education in Galilee was held at a much higher standard than Judea. The Bible only reveals Jesus’ life at birth, at the age of twelve at the Temple, and finally upon his active ministry around the age of 30. According to ancient rabbinic teachings and writings, the education and life of a Jewish boy in a society like Galilee would have been clearly set until the age of 30 for someone possessing the education and anointing to become a sage, like Jesus.

In Jewish antiquity there is a passage that teaches what a Jewish child will do beginning at age 5 when he will be ready to study the written Torah, at age 10 he will study the Oral Torah, at thirteen he will be ready for his bar mitzvah, at fifteen he will study legal knowledge, at eighteen he will be married, at age twenty he will pursue a vocation, and at thirty he is ready to enter full vigor (my paraphrase of Avot 5:21 from the Mishnah).

Even today, biblical education is still more important than going to the synagogue. And this is not because school is more important than worship, but because Jews do not separate education of the Torah from worship. They believe them to be inseparable. In fact, they believe that studying the Word of God is among the highest forms of worship.

Jesus would have spent many days studying and memorizing the written and oral teachings of God and the sages. As we are told by Luke, after Jesus had been discovered by his parents at the Temple, “Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”

Again, it is very likely that the assumption of the Jews in John 7 was based on local discrimination, rather than a statement of fact.





In His dust,
Johnny

Writer: Capt. Jonathan Gainey was born in Jacksonville, FL in June, 1969. He has been married to Staci, the daughter of retired Salvation Army officers, for twenty years and they have four children ages 18, 16, 12, and 4. Jonathan was commissioned as an officer in June of 2002, and is currently serving in his third appointment in New Bern, NC, USA. He is working on a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the creator and manager of the Flocks Diner website, where his passion for learning and teaching is expressed and shared through writing and a weekly podcast.