To me, trying to add layers and layers to “why Christ didn’t write” his messages down is like trying to give the emporer clothes. It just seems to make it all so simple to take it for what it really is. His #1 intention for each of us was to simply be like him! To serve our fellow men, love our fellow men, associate with sinners to aleviate their pains, NOT JUDGE, look upon the heart, not be letter of the law kinds of religious people (pharisees and saducees). It speaks so much against what the church teaches and it could definitly be a false philosophy but I LOVE the idea that Jesus was not trying to start a religion. Peter wanted to start the religion and hence tumbled all the scripture. As I look more into biblical history, both Old and New Testament, this way of seeing things seems to make more and more sense. Jesus came to die for us, give us an example, leave a legacy worth following and thats it! I try to find this in my Mormonism everyday and I do. I find it in my fellow members. I find it in our focus on service, humililty and the pure love of Christ. I find it in the pure examples of our current prophet and leaders. ANy thoughts?

He did “figure out a means to have his ministry recorded and preserved”, precisely because he thought it was important. He commanded his disciples to write down his teachings and to go into all the world teaching all nations “to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

It’s not clear why Jesus himself should be expected to write these things down — after all, he had apostles whose role was as special messengers and witnesses of who he was and of his ministry and teachings. But just because Jesus himself didn’t write these things down does not mean that he did not prepare “a means to have his ministry recorded and preserved”; to the contrary, the means he provided continue to enrich us today.

By the way, a ton of material in the Book of Mormon revolves around the importance of writing down teachings and the dealings of the Lord with the people, including numerous instances in 3 Nephi in which Christ explicitly commands his disciples to write down teachings that he has given to the prophets, and he quotes passages of his revelations to Isaiah and Malachi for the express purpose that his disciples should record them in the writings that would become part of the Book of Mormon following the labors of Mormon in the fifth century in compiling those writings into the record. Despite Jesus’ commands to his disciples in the Book of Mormon about writing down these teachings, even the Book of Mormon does not contain a complete transcript of everything Jesus taught during his time with the people (3 Nephi 26:6).

While many Jews could read, they just never had a nun standing over them with a ruler, waiting to slap them on the wrist for making a sloppy aleph.

I believe Jesus could read, and the New Testament attests to it, as he reads from Isaiah. But there really is no evidence of him ever writing, just as most Jews would not have been writers.

I don’t know much of the book mentioned earlier that indicates that Jesus destroyed his writings before his ministry started, but we do have some of Jesus’s writing. See Exodus 34:1. Also, 1 Nephi 16 describes a Liahona that contains writings that change over time. It doesn’t say who the author of the writings that change, but they do lead the people as long as they are righteous.

I like your argument. Perhaps we can call it the via correlativa. I don’t know Latin, but it sounds Latiny!