John 7:14-15

“ Nevertheless, when the feast was already half finished, Jesus went up to the temple; and he taught there. 15. And the Jews were astonished, saying, How does this man know the Scriptures, not being a man who has studied? ”

The question of the Jews bears only upon the competency of Jesus (as Tholuck thinks, according to the Rabbinical customs of the later times); their astonishment, according to the text, arose from the boldness and skill with which He handled the Scriptural declarations. It is not necessary to understand an object with μεμαθηκώς, having studied, as our translators do (“not having studied them ”). [The English translators, both in A. V. and R. V., translate without the objective word.] This word is absolute: not having passed through the school of the masters; “not being a learned man” (Reuss). Γράμματα, letters, denotes, undoubtedly, literature in general, and not only the sacred Scriptures (γραφαί, ἱερὰ γράμματα). Comp. Acts 26:24. But as the sacred writings were among the Jews the essential object of literary studies, γράμματα certainly refers first of all to the Scriptures. This saying of the adversaries of Jesus proves, as Meyer justly observes, that it was a fact generally known that Jesus had not received any Rabbinical teaching.