The coin that Jesus asked to see! No Denarius was that!

[badger]

I don't think it was............. a denarius!

Let me start by fishing out a pic of a coin.....:-


....and let me fish out another (in slightly) smaller scale:-



.......... so let's imagine that you were there, watching that whole scene and that priest tried to catch out Jesus with a nasty question, who then asked to see a coin.
You are watching this! So can you see what coin it is that's the priest is holding and looking at? Can anybody?

Christians enjoy the clever answer from Jesus. But if the whole story had been known about they would be ecstatic about how amazing (and how deadly) his answer really was!

By the way...... both of the above coins were minted under Roman supervision, and both have the (almost exactly) same diameter.

More tomorrow.....

 

[Cino]

Interesting! The pictures are too pixelated to see any salient details. Looking forward to your reveal!

 

[RJM]

But Christ asked them to say whose image on the coin; he responded to what they said. It's their statement that the image was Caesar's that he responded to -- not to whatever image might actually have been on the coin?

And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's.
(Mark 12: 16)

Or am I missing the point?

 

[stranger]

Interesting! The pictures are too pixelated to see any salient details. Looking forward to your reveal!

Interesting presentation, will be waiting with bated breath.

 

[wil]

I had a gold Caesar in my hand...they wanted 6k for it. It was old (doh) beat up, chunk out of it...

It gave me goosebumps thinking about how many hands it was in and the number of things it was traded for.

Back to your story.

 

[stranger]

I had a gold Caesar in my hand...they wanted 6k for it. It was old (doh) beat up, chunk out of it...

It gave me goosebumps thinking about how many hands it was in and the number of things it was traded for.

Back to your story.

I suspect it was worth much more than 6k, but 6k is a lot when you don't have it. Still, it must have been nice to imagine the history behind it. I'm sure the reveal will be worth waiting for.

 

[badger]

Interesting! The pictures are too pixelated to see any salient details. Looking forward to your reveal!

If you had been amongst that crowd, all that time ago, would you have had a better view of it?
That's a better view than those present had, I reckon.

 

[badger]

But Christ asked them to say whose image on the coin; he responded to what they said. It's their statement that the image was Caesar's that he responded to -- not to whatever image might actually have been on the coin?

And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's.
(Mark 12: 16)

Or am I missing the point?

Do you think that they told the truth? The absolute truth?
I think that Jesus let them keep their lives, that day, whilst shocking them in to stunned silence, staring at him as if 'marvelling at him'.
End of confrontation....... until other priests came forward with their questions.

How much do you know about the Temple coin?
I'd better make that subject my next post.

 

[badger]

I had a gold Caesar in my hand...they wanted 6k for it. It was old (doh) beat up, chunk out of it...

It gave me goosebumps thinking about how many hands it was in and the number of things it was traded for.

Back to your story.

Brilliant! I was metal detecting in a field behind Pegwell Bay England, where the Romans first landed. I was very happy because I had found a silver penny, but when an acquaintance ten feet away from me put his exp[ensive detector on the ground I stopped and looked at him....he was holding a clod of earth in each hand, stock-still. I walked over and looked at one clod and could see the impression of a coin in it... and then I saw the other, with a shining gold coin stuck in it, looking so new that it was as if somebody had just pushed it there..... a Roman Gold Aureus. I'll never forget that moment.

 

[badger]

I suspect it was worth much more than 6k, but 6k is a lot when you don't have it. Still, it must have been nice to imagine the history behind it. I'm sure the reveal will be worth waiting for.

I hope so too........ or I'm going to look like a real clot!

 

[badger]

I propose to you all that Jesus knew exactly what coin that priest held. I don't think it was a denarius.
The Romans took a fat cut from Temple takings, for sure, but they were not in denarii.

In 39BC Rome founded a mint in Tyre to strike the Temple Shekels. Numismatists call them shekels but they were Temple coins weighing exactly half a shekel. Circa 19BC Rome decided to close this mint and to open another one near to Jerusalem in secret location. I don't know if its location has ever been discovered, but I guess that transporting silver bullion through Samaria or along the East bank of the Jordan was a dodgy business no matter how large the escort.

The Tyrian shekel was struck with great care, but the 'Jerusalem' shekel was carelessly struck and mis-strikes do indicate a later shekel, I have heard. The Romans only cared about silver purity and weight and that suggests that Rome was very interested in this as a revenue because hundreds of thousands of Jews are believed to have attended each major feast, all priests were required to attend these (circa 2000) and the Temple's Levite guards numbered about 6000. The feasts were huge and in a later year Agrippa took a kidney counts from sacrifices to establish such attendances by the adult males, each one paying one temple coin. I imagine that Rome took a % of all these funds, otherwise why was Rome so interested in silver purity and weight?

One very fat income from this Temple income was the coin-exchange (Anna's bazaar) where currencies from all over the regions could be exchanged for Temple silver, expanded in to a huge business by the former Chief Priest Annas, a relative of the then Chief Priest Caiaphas. Only Temple money was any good in the Temple and it existed there in tons weight. The exchange rates were a disgusting swindle, stealing funds from working Jews who had slaved for (mostly) one year to afford this trip, and being ripped off by the people of Jerusalem and suburbs for any bed and board they could find, and then to be cheated in the Temple itself.

Jesus and the Baptist were both supporters of the working people, there was not middle class, and they had few kind words for the fat, greedy, corrupted Temple Priesthood who had discarded their true missions long before. He wanted a return of the old laws for sure, and amongst these were the poor laws, of course. No wonder Jesus wrecked Anna's bazaar and picketed the Temple courts, two days in a row.

But that was not all. The coin...... The Jewish Great Temple's coin.... it bore images that must have caused Jesus and any genuine Jews absolute fury. The ultimate disgrace.

And so tomorrow I would like to describe the Roman denarius and the Temple 'Shekel' in more detail.
See what you think about how Jesus would have thought about that Temple coin.

 

[RJM]

@badger
Is that the image of Baal?

 

[badger]

@badger
Is that the image of Baal?

Yep!
That is what 'they' claim, RJM.
The head on the obverse of the Temple coin is that is Melgarth Heracles (I am told).
And I have also read that Melgarth Heracles was known to the Jews as Baal.

I'll feature both coins for your scrutiny 'next post'.

 

[badger]

Moving forwards...........

The coins:-

Two coins are shown here. They both look similar, both have similar diameters although one is much thicker. One is a Tyrian Shekel from the time of Jesus (Numismatist intel) and one is a Denarius from the time of Hadrian. Please try not to look closely at the titled pic or you'll know which is which immediately? But I wonder if you could tell these apart at four feet distance, or two?

More about this on next post.

 

[RJM]

Yep!
That is what 'they' claim, RJM.
The head on the obverse of the Temple coin is that is Melgarth Heracles (I am told).
And I have also read that Melgarth Heracles was known to the Jews as Baal.

Easy to see that Jesus wouldn't like that. But would the Romans care?

 

[RJM]

Seems this was a Tyrean half-shekel trusted for its high silver content and accepted as exchange even by the Qumran community. Apart from some Jews not liking the Baal image as temple currency, what further 'danger' did it pose -- in the context of the render unto Caesar passage?

 

[badger]

Easy to see that Jesus wouldn't like that. But would the Romans care?

No..... The Romans didn't about much to do with the Jews, the Jewish provinces etc..... they only cared about control and tribute plus as much taxation as they could drag out of them. They only left a Prefect to supervise Judea, Samaria and Idumea, and princes to look after the rest. Control ultimately lay with the Syrian Legate, as shown in various gospel passages.

Jesus wasn't debating/arguing with Romans, but with fat, nasty, corrupted quisling priests.

 

[RJM]

No..... The Romans didn't about much to do with the Jews, the Jewish provinces etc..... they only cared about control and tribute plus as much taxation as they could drag out of them. They only left a Prefect to supervise Judea, Samaria and Idumea, and princes to look after the rest. Control ultimately lay with the Syrian Legate, as shown in various gospel passages.

Jesus wasn't debating/arguing with Romans, but with fat, nasty, corrupted quisling priests.

Accepting Jesus's anger about the extortionate trading and commercial activity -- what problem would this particular Tyrean half-shekel cause?

 

[badger]

Seems this was a Tyrean half-shekel trusted for its high silver content and accepted as exchange even by the Qumran community. Apart from some Jews not liking the Baal image as temple currency, what further 'danger' did it pose -- in the context of the render unto Caesar passage?

I don't know if that image is of a full weight shekel or the Temple half shekel. But the title above that pic has opened a whole new avenue of interest and search for me because, as you have just written it was used in trade outside of the temple. The title reads :A silver trade coin. I've never seen that title before in my studies and it does open up new areas of interest.

That's what I find....every time I want to write article or post I have to research and check out what is known, and thus every post is a lesson for me.

 

[badger]

Accepting Jesus's anger about the extortionate trading and commercial activity -- what problem would this particular Tyrean half-shekel cause?

That's a nice intro for my next post.....

Baal was the most hated and outrageous God to the Jews; you know this from old testament accounts. An insult to Jews everywhere, and so to stuff a likeness on to the Jews' Great Temple coinage had to be a smack in the face for Judaism.

It was worse than that. The God of Abraham forbade any kind of graven image (for reverence) in temple or anywhere else, and here on the reverse of the coin is a great raptor standing upon the prow of a ship, 'a Tryrian Galley' so that picture's title reads which is new info for me to review. So now the Great Temple's coin has some other disgusting God and a graven image for every Jew to touch and handle. Lovely! Not.

And it gets worse! What did Jesus ask?
Mat Whose [is] this image and superscription?
Mark Whose [is] this image and superscription?
Luke Whose image and superscription hath it?

Yes....... The abbreviated name of Caesar in Greek, struck in to the reverse of the Jewish Great Temple's coin. Some show KP and Some show KAP. If you would look to the right of the raptor's neck you'll perceive it, less strong in this coin than in many others, but it is there.

A person would not have to think about these three outright insults, hundreds of thousands of them swilling around the Holy Temple of the Abrahamic God to imagine what Jesus thought about that. And so he asked: ...Image and Superscription? The priest saved his own life and all those of his clleagues...... he answered 'Caesar's', because if he had answered 'Melgarth and Caesar' the crowd might have figure out just enough to tear them apart in rage.

My proposal obviously holds that the crowd had always been unaware of such details. But Jesus certainly was not.
How to shut up a smart mouth company of priests in an instant.

True? Not true? I'll never know, but crowds often did not pick up on the inferences and analogies that Jesus spoke, which he sometimes mentioned of course, and I'll believe that this was one of those, lost even to those who wrote about this remarkable event.