Could Jesus read or write? If so, in what language?

In order to get around, it would certainly not have hurt any person to know how to read Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and a little bit of Latin.

Luke 4:16
"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written..." He read Hebrew, or its Aramaic translation.

He was constantly saying "it is written" and "search the scriptures", and people were amazed by his knowledge of the scriptures (Luke 2:47; Matt 7:28-29). I've been told that it was common for boys to be taught to read in the synagogues, but I'll let someone else have the final say on that point.

Since Jesus was said to have quoted scriptures in great depth, that's more of an argument for literacy than anything else. In order to truly commit the Bible to memory, one has to not only know how to read, but read it a good many times.

Besides, the Jews were a people who, as a rule, learned how to read young. Graverobbers were expected to know how to read, and there were warnings written on some tombstones to deter them. Reading and writing in Hebrew and Aramaic was essential in order to get around in Jerusalem. So when he was given the book of Isiah, he was reading the actual book of Isiah, no translations, no interpretations. (Besides, Aramaic and Hebrew at the time were two very similar languages, more closely related to each other than Spanish and Portuguese.)

Jesus (Joshua Ben Joseph), being born in what is now known as Israel during the Roman occupation had to learn Hebrew in order to read Torah. Because the Romans occupied Israel, their language was Latin, so it would have come to pass that he would have learned Latin. He didn't speak English as English is an amalgam of Anglo and Saxon. And the Germanic Invasions would not have taken place for at least a few hundred years after the death of Joshua Ben Joseph.

Actually, Greek was extremely common. That's what the apostles wrote in. Because of Alexander the Great and his conquests, most of the "known world" spoke Greek, and I'm sure most of the Romans would have learned it and used it when they set about conquering the world. Therefore, it would not surprise me if Jesus could have read and spoke Greek as well as Hebrew.

Anyhow, for the Christians who are reading, the Bible said he increased in wisdom. (Luke 2:52) That indicates that he *learned*. Supposedly, he could have known everything anyone could ever have wanted to know, and we know he knew "what was in their hearts", but the Bible says that he learned. He had to learn to walk, to talk, to carve, to read. Why? Because he came here to experience *our life*, not to stand aloof and tell us about an experience he wasn't a part of. So he went to school and studied just like me, except he was much better at it.

Well-educated 1st-century Romans (and some of their trained slaves) read and spoke classical Greek, but the ordinary soldier stationed in Palestine did not. He did not even read and write Latin. Such a soldier might well have picked up the "Koine," a vernacular and widely-spoken version of Greek in the post-Alexandrian world, but he would not necessarily have been able to read or write any form of Greek. Moreover, the average resident of Palestine in the first century would have been speaking Aramaic, with possibly some working knowledge of the Koine and of Latin.

The Scriptures were not necessarily written by "The Apostles" -- we don't know who wrote them, and the names attached to them are merely traditional. One ancient tradition is that the unlettered Matthew needed the help of an angel to write his gospel. (Luke, supposedly a Greek Gentile physician by tradition, is said to have written in educated Greek, but he was not an "apostle," if by that is meant one of the 12 disciples of Christ. He never knew Christ.) We can't be certain, since the original texts of the Gospels do not exist.

If Jesus read and wrote, and the Scriptures claim that he did, then he probably read (and perhaps wrote) Hebrew but spoke Aramaic in everyday discourse. He was from a poor family of the sort that normally would not have been able to send a child to school; but perhaps he acquired his literacy by divine inspiration:

answers.com/main/ntquery?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Aram
aic+of+Jesus&curtab=2222_1&linktext=Aramaic%20of%20Jesus
webpage no longer exists