(Right Winger Evangelicals) brand of Christianity IS NOT the Truth of Christ

[Major Nikon]

22. I choose not to view history through romanticized lenses

By all accounts Jewish residents of the time and place would have had an extremely low literacy rate somewhere between 5 and 20%. Going by this alone it's probable Jesus was illiterate. For more evidence all we have are various gospels which suggest both literacy and illiteracy and biblical historians are divided on the issue. To positively decide one way or the other is more of an act of faith than evidence. Personally I'd guess Jesus was literate simply because at least one of his disciples was most certainly literate and would not have likely followed an illiterate Rabbi. However, I'm most certainly not going to say one way or the other because the evidence either way just isn't that strong.

As I said, assuming Jesus was literate which obviously you do, the question then becomes where did he get his education in literacy and religion? The obvious answer is he was a disciple of someone and JtB is pretty much the only suspect. Does this mean he must have been in a pederastic relationship? Certainly not, but it's also pretty naive to positively assert this wasn't the case. Such practices were extremely common at the time, well tolerated, if not expected in teacher/disciple relationships of all sorts. Ancient Latin, Greek, and Hebrew had no words for homosexual and heterosexual. It was assumed same-sex attraction existed at various times to various degrees. It's also worth noting that Jesus had not one word to say about the subject. There were also religious rituals practiced in the nude with disciples by both JtB and Jesus including baptism and foot massages. Does this mean positively there was a pederastic relationship? No, but neither does it mean there wasn't and it would be naive to positively assert there wasn't. The disciple who Jesus loved makes for some interesting reading.