Coins and Gospels

[Adam]

● Then there's the give unto Caesar denarii that Jesus calls for, even though denarii weren't used in Judea, now were Greek coins (leptas) two of which were equivalent to one Roman quadrans (in the widow's mitres story). We get clever dudes suggesting that they got Roman and Greek coins from soldiers, but if one perused the pages of Meshorrer's Judean coin catalogs you would not find any sizable number to suggest that ordinary people recognized such coins....
These are prime candidates for ahistoricity.

I'll acknowledge that spin's brilliance solves his own conundrums about other proofs of ahistoricity, but this one escaped even his vigilant research. For starters, "denarius" is the word used not just in Mark 12:15, but in Luke 20:24 as well. Apologists can't claim that GMark is known to have been published in Rome with lots of interloping Roman words (of course Luke would have been as well?), but does Matthew 22:19 help? Oddly enough, it does.

'Show me the coin that pays the census tax.' Then they handed him the Roman coin.

So this version is so close to the original that it quotes Jesus, and it teaches that for this tax a Roman coin was used. The authorities loved that, for sure, with the opportunity to profit from unfair exchange rates. Probably all the more reason that the people hated to use the denarii and could not afford to if they wanted. And thanks, spin, for already explaining away your other examples of "ahistoricity". I could add also that the young man who fled away naked at Mark 14:51,52 might have been Jesus's "man" who accompanied him all the time, even when praying. He is often said to have been John Mark, the author.

[spin]

● Then there's the give unto Caesar denarii that Jesus calls for, even though denarii weren't used in Judea, now were Greek coins (leptas) two of which were equivalent to one Roman quadrans (in the widow's mitres story). We get clever dudes suggesting that they got Roman and Greek coins from soldiers, but if one perused the pages of Meshorrer's Judean coin catalogs you would not find any sizable number to suggest that ordinary people recognized such coins....
These are prime candidates for ahistoricity.

I'll acknowledge that spin's brilliance solves his own conundrums about other proofs of ahistoricity, but this one escaped even his vigilant research. For starters, "denarius" is the word used not just in Mark 12:15, but in Luke 20:24 as well. Apologists can't claim that GMark is known to have been published in Rome with lots of interloping Roman words (of course Luke would have been as well?), but does Matthew 22:19 help? Oddly enough, it does.

'Show me the coin that pays the census tax.' Then they handed him the Roman coin.

So this version is so close to the original that it quotes Jesus, and it teaches that for this tax a Roman coin was used. The authorities loved that, for sure, with the opportunity to profit from unfair exchange rates. Probably all the more reason that the people hated to use the denarii and could not afford to if they wanted. And thanks, spin, for already explaining away your other examples of "ahistoricity". I could add also that the young man who fled away naked at Mark 14:51,52 might have been Jesus's "man" who accompanied him all the time, even when praying. He is often said to have been John Mark, the author.

Conjectures about young runaway men aside, you won't get to any history by depending on a redaction of Mark made by the Matthean source you quote. Ordinary people paid taxes with the coin they used (with one exception, the temple tax, which required a Tyrian half-drachma because of the dependability of the silver): you'll find what they used in Meshorrer's coin catalogs from sites across Judea.

The Matthean text 22:19 reads:

επιδειξατε μοι το νομισμα του κηνσου. Show me the coin of the "census". οι δε προσηνεγκαν αυτω δηναριον and they offered him a denarius

There is no mention of a "Roman coin". We see a translation that is an impediment rather than an aid.

The significance of κηνσος is opaque here for it obviously doesn't mean what it did in Latin and it was not commonly used in Greek. It is clear from the Matthean redactor, in 17:25, that any of the kings of the earth could take tax or census money. The translators' guess about "tribute" might be correct, but how that differs from simple "tax" is unclear from the context.

The Matthean text agrees that they brought a denarius (a coin not used in Judea). So we have a denarius requested and given in a locality where there were no denarii. Thanks for supplying a witless excuse for the denarius from the mouth of Jesus. Just read it back into my earlier post with the other lame fudges that might be tried to explain away the currently unexplainable, as thicker christians are wont to try.

[Ben C. Smith]

The Matthean text agrees that they brought a denarius (a coin not used in Judea). So we have a denarius requested and given in a locality where there were no denarii. Thanks for supplying a witless excuse for the denarius from the mouth of Jesus. Just read it back into my earlier post with the other lame fudges that might be tried to explain away the currently unexplainable, as thicker christians are wont to try.

One explanation I have seen is that Mark, writing in Italy, simply did the same basic thing that the KJV translators did. The latter substituted the familiar (a penny) for the unfamiliar (a denarius); the former had already done the same, substituting a denarius for a tetradrachma or some such.

(I have no special opinion on this.)

[spin]

One explanation I have seen is that Mark, writing in Italy, simply did the same basic thing that the KJV translators did. The latter substituted the familiar (a penny) for the unfamiliar (a denarius); the former had already done the same, substituting a denarius for a tetradrachma or some such.

I'm fairly confident Mark was written in Italy, which accounts for explanations such as two leptas being (equivalent to) a quadrans (Mk 12:42), but you'd think such an explanation would discount the substitution theory.

[Ben C. Smith]

One explanation I have seen is that Mark, writing in Italy, simply did the same basic thing that the KJV translators did. The latter substituted the familiar (a penny) for the unfamiliar (a denarius); the former had already done the same, substituting a denarius for a tetradrachma or some such.

I'm fairly confident Mark was written in Italy, which accounts for explanations such as two leptas being (equivalent to) a quadrans (Mk 12:42)....

Yes, agreed.

...but you'd think such an explanation would discount the substitution theory.

Why is that? Does the KJV hailing from England somehow discount its own substitution of a penny for a denarius? Or what are you getting at?

ETA: It occurs to me that perhaps you mean that, if Mark in one spot named the foreign coin and then gave its Roman equivalent, then why not do that with the denarius? If so, then... maybe there is a point to be made there. But these authors do not always seem overly concerned with exact consistency in these matters.

[spin]

Ben C.,

The ETA gets to the issue. And larger coins being more significant (the value thing) are more memorable. What are the two Russian coins? Most people only find the name of one of them… the bigger one. How many people on a biblical criticism and history forum would know both the principal Jewish coins (had I not mentioned them both)?

If the writer had been inconsistent, as you theorize and I doubt, we'd have no knowledge of what the original was, which would indicate a layer away from historicity.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

One explanation I have seen is that Mark, writing in Italy, simply did the same basic thing that the KJV translators did. The latter substituted the familiar (a penny) for the unfamiliar (a denarius); the former had already done the same, substituting a denarius for a tetradrachma or some such.

I'm fairly confident Mark was written in Italy, which accounts for explanations such as two leptas being (equivalent to) a quadrans (Mk 12:42)....

Yes, agreed.

...but you'd think such an explanation would discount the substitution theory.

Why is that? Does the KJV hailing from England somehow discount its own substitution of a penny for a denarius? Or what are you getting at?
ETA: It occurs to me that perhaps you mean that, if Mark in one spot named the foreign coin and then gave its Roman equivalent, then why not do that with the denarius? If so, then... maybe there is a point to be made there. But these authors do not always seem overly concerned with exact consistency in these matters.

Perhaps one should note that Roman money is a theme in Mark to discuss the question: What is something worth? Imho Mark mentions Roman money often in a negative sense (Mark 6:37, 12:15, 12:42, 14:5). It seems to me that Mark's goal in 12:42 was not to explain the 2 Lepta to “his” Roman audience. I think the question here is also: What is something worth?

In reality there were TWO - 2.
But in Roman currency these TWO are just a QUARTER – 1/4.
But in the eyes of Jesus it was “all she had to live on”.

Why TWO Lepta? Because it was a historical event? Or because it was particularly useful to Mark to draw a comparison with the Roman currency?

[Metacrock]

● Then there's the give unto Caesar denarii that Jesus calls for, even though denarii weren't used in Judea, now were Greek coins (leptas) two of which were equivalent to one Roman quadrans (in the widow's mitres story). We get clever dudes suggesting that they got Roman and Greek coins from soldiers, but if one perused the pages of Meshorrer's Judean coin catalogs you would not find any sizable number to suggest that ordinary people recognized such coins....
These are prime candidates for ahistoricity.

I'll acknowledge that spin's brilliance solves his own conundrums about other proofs of ahistoricity, but this one escaped even his vigilant research. For starters, "denarius" is the word used not just in Mark 12:15, but in Luke 20:24 as well. Apologists can't claim that GMark is known to have been published in Rome with lots of interloping Roman words (of course Luke would have been as well?), but does Matthew 22:19 help? Oddly enough, it does.

'Show me the coin that pays the census tax.' Then they handed him the Roman coin.

So this version is so close to the original that it quotes Jesus, and it teaches that for this tax a Roman coin was used. The authorities loved that, for sure, with the opportunity to profit from unfair exchange rates. Probably all the more reason that the people hated to use the denarii and could not afford to if they wanted. And thanks, spin, for already explaining away your other examples of "ahistoricity". I could add also that the young man who fled away naked at Mark 14:51,52 might have been Jesus's "man" who accompanied him all the time, even when praying. He is often said to have been John Mark, the author.

they used Roman coins ij Palestine. The original doesn't say thst. you mean the original Greek of the version we have now, If the Ur mark theory is right,,,?

[Metacrock]

Perhaps one should note that Roman money is a theme in Mark to discuss the question: What is something worth? Imho Mark mentions Roman money often in a negative sense (Mark 6:37, 12:15, 12:42, 14:5). It seems to me that Mark's goal in 12:42 was not to explain the 2 Lepta to “his” Roman audience. I think the question here is also: What is something worth?

I don[t think we can say Roman money means Roman audience when they used it all over Palestine, like saying Canadian money in Detroit proves Canadian audience. only more so.

[Peter Kirby]

Split from here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2049&start=10#p45389