"When they [members of the Sanhedrin] saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus." (NIV)
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The claim is sometimes made that the apostles could not have written the New Testament because Acts 4:13 says that "they were unschooled, ordinary men."
Is that so?
No. And here is why:
First, the relevant passage at Acts 4:13 only refers to Peter and John at a point soon after the resurrection (33AD). It tells us nothing of the education of the other apostles. For example, Matthew was a tax collector and probably had training similar to an amanuensis (that is, a secretary). Nor does it tell us of any education the apostles received in the intervening decades between the resurrection and the writing of the New Testament.
Second, it does not make any difference if they used an amanuensis (secretary). It was very common in the ancient world for someone to dictate to an amanuensis/secretary whatever they wanted to be written down in a letter, etc. The amanuensis would take notes and then write it all down for them.
- This was the case with all of Paul's letters (though he was very highly educated). He only wrote the closing greeting (2 Thessalonians 3:17)
- And in the case of Peter, Mark was the writer of his Gospel account and he almost certainly used an amanuensis for at least one of his letters.
- In the case of John, he also almost certainly used an amanuensis for his Gospel (which I strongly believe was John's disciple Papias).
Finally, this comment by members of the Sanhedrin recorded in Acts 4:13 probably has nothing to do with whether they could read or write, but rather with whether they had received training under one of their approved Rabbis or something beyond the ancient world's equivalent of grade school. "Higher education" in the ancient world was focused on rhetoric. And probably they were amazed that in spite of the fact that they had none of the rhetorical skill that came with that kind of higher education, they were still able to speak very effectively.
On the other hand.....
Pointing to their lack of training in rhetoric only brings up a more serious problem for the skeptic, as pointed out by the quote below....and also in the book Too Good To Be False by Tom Gilson.
