Could Jesus Read?

An interesting question that came up on Wednesday is whether or not Jesus was able to read. Maybe it's only interesting to me, but whatever. Here are some arguments for and against:

For:

--A passage in Luke describes Jesus reading out of Isaiah to inaugurate his public ministry
--Jesus was a wise person and knew the scripture of his time very well. In fact, he is sometimes referred to as a rabbi
--As a Jewish male, being able to read the Torah might have been part of his training for a bar mitzvah.

Against:

--Luke's main point in the passage is not that Jesus was reading, but what he had to say--literacy was not the question being addressed, and may be a plot device, not an accurate historical description
--Between 93 and 95% of people during that time were illiterate
--It's hard to know how much education was required to become a rabbi in those times
--An oral and visual culture makes it possible for even very wise people to not need to be able to read. An analogy today might be that only a small percentage of Americans have doctoral degrees. The rest of us manage to get by and still say worthwhile things.
--If Jesus was a carpenter, his social status would not have allowed him a lot of free time or money for education.

So, it's impossible to know one way or another for sure. Jesus was exceptional in many ways, so why not in terms of literacy? But on the other hand, his ministry did not require that he be literate either. In fact, part of what's so arresting about his sayings and stories is how pithy they are, and how easy to remember without having to be written down.

Food for thought.