John 7:15

Marvelled. Literally, “continued to marvel.”

Letters. Gr. grammata. The word may denote the individual symbols of the alphabet (Luke 23:38), correspondence (Acts 28:21), books or writings (John 5:47), the “[holy] scriptures” (2 Tim. 3:15), or learning, whether elementary or more advanced. The last definition seems best to apply here. The surprise was not that Jesus could read or write, but that He was so well informed and was able to present so learned a discourse. They knew He had not been trained in the rabbinical schools. A truly educated person according to their definition was one who not only had received his instruction from a recognized teacher, but had also been closely associated with that teacher and had served him. Self-education in the Scriptures was not unheard of, but such an education was looked upon as vastly inferior to the recognized training in the rabbinical schools. See Talmud Sotah 22a, Soncino ed., pp. 109, 110.