If someone is familiar with the extremely hypothetical nature of arguments recorded in Talmudic times, this is no evidence or even indication at all of the literacy rate of religious Jews. It just isn’t.
“Robert Stein: Literacy rate in biblical times
William Harris- 5-10% (Ancient Literacy)
Catherine Hezser- 10-15% (Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine)
Harry Gamble- 15-20% (Books and Readers in the Early Church)
Col. 4:16; 1 Thess.5:27; Rev.1:3; 22:18; 1 Tim. 4:13; Acts 15:21,31; Luke 4:16-21
“These, and the other letters of the New Testament, were meant to be read aloud. If, as I assume, Paul was a careful writer, he would therefore have penned these letters more for his readers’ ears than for their eyes”
“... the New Testament writers anticipated that the members of this corporate audience would not have individual copies of their works before them, but that someone would read aloud what they have written... The main sense involved was not their eyes but their ears, and the experience was not a visual one but an auditory one.
“... the person who brought the gospel to them... knew the context of the work and may very well have practiced reading the goepel aloud before he read it publicly...”
http://tinubos.blogspot.com/2010/02/robert-stein-literacy-rate-in-biblical.html