“I think I’ll interpret the Bible myself. After all, what could go wrong?”
Then why bother to read it at all? The original New Testament manuscripts were written in everyday forms of the Greek and Aramaic languages that could be understood by the common man. There are English translations that are quite easy to understand. The Gospel was not meant to be doled out and interpreted by a “gatekeeper”.
Don’t tell me, tell Mack Wolford.
The truth is that for First Century Jews and Christians literacy in Greek was rare and in Aramaic even rarer as it was not a literary language. Literacy among women was unheard of.
"...I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations...." Titus Flavius Josephus — Antiquities of the Jews 20,11.2
“writing [in first-century A.D. Palestine] was in the hands of an élite of trained specialists, and reading required an advanced education available only to a few.” - W.H. Kelber