They were illiterate because there was nothing to read. It's as simple as that....there were no books, in possession of the general population to teach reading, VERY few who could read and therefore teach reading, and if under strange circumstances, someone did know how to read.....there was nothing to read. These people, by and large, in this area of the world were poor by anyones standards. They walked or rode a donkey to get where they were going.....Lets say I somehow knew how to read.......I wanted to read a book on anything.....where would I go to have access to a book...Rome, Cairo...???I have a job, I work daily for my income....should I leave my job and take a two month trip to wherever to read a book???? You must think practically on these things this happened two thousand years ago...these people, in this area, were poor....shepherds, farmers, tradesmen, tailors, merchants...dealing with local people largely on the barter system. While the "big city folks" like Romans certainly had access to libraries.....the scriptures were in Isreal and not in libraries until a few hundred years later,. At that time the church could have HAND COPIED enough copies to put them in Rome and elsewhere. Why do you seem to be unable to see the obvious......in the year 150 there were few, if any written bibles anywhere
Now that’s funny right there. David was a Shepard but somehow learned how to read and even write. You might check into the fact that he wrote part of the Old Testament. Also Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hezekiah, Solomon, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi were all before Christ and obviously could read and write. Then there were the poor fishermen who Jesus called as disciples. Not educated but could still read and write obviously. Even James the brother of Jesus who would not be considered an educated person wrote part of the New Testament.
There is much more evidence that even the poor could read and write.
Yes there was. Scripture. The Jews had the OT writings to read. Just because people may not have owned their own books, does not mean that they either could not read or did not want to read. Nor did it mean there was no use to read. There were other legal documents to read. One doesn't have to have books to read for reading to be useful.
In the OT Law, if a man divorced his wife, he was to write her a certificate of divorce. That command presumed literacy.
These people, by and large, in this area of the world were poor by anyones standards. They walked or rode a donkey to get where they were going.....
Well, duh, that was all they had. There weren't cars around back then. That is not *poor by anyone's standards*. By their standards, if you had a donkey to ride you were probably middle class.
.Lets say I somehow knew how to read.......I wanted to read a book on anything.....where would I go to have access to a book...Rome, Cairo...???
The local synagogue where there were scrolls of the Law kept?
.in the year 150 there were few, if any written bibles anywhere
So what? Are you telling us that's all they had to read? There were copies of Scripture and other legal documents to read.
You have yet to offer anything of substance to back up your claims or opinions. Until then, they will be considered the fluff that they are.