Jesus the Orator

When discussing what and how Jesus might have read, Beal makes the argument on page 95 that perhaps rather than simply reading aloud, Jesus would chant the scriptures in a traditional fashion. In class, someone proposed that perhaps Jesus was not reading from the scripture in order to do this, but instead was reciting a memorized oral piece, which was common at the time.
This idea intrigues me, as as I happen to agree with Dr. Satlow's point that it's unlikely Jesus was literate. However, I think it is probable that oral tradition would have been passed on to him, rather than the ability to read. So, the idea of Jesus holding scripture in order to appear knowledgable while reciting oral tradition makes a lot of sense to me. As we discussed in class, many of the earliest recordings of Jesus' teachings aren't things from the Torah and rather more like life lessons, which supports the idea that what we think of as scripture might not have been as important during Jesus' life. The image that this gave me was of Jesus as an orator using rhetoric and oral tradition, rather than scripture as Beal suggests.