Coins and Gospels

[Ben C. Smith]

What brief interview? "Mark" may have been in the audience when Peter was talking about Jesus, but there is no need for an one to one interview.

You took my words far too literally.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Maybe no quadrantes were found in Egypt also. But that would not prevent Corinthians to know about quadrantes, due to Corinth trading with Rome, its proximity with Italy, an influx of italian expats and discovery of early imperial quadrantes in the city. Furthermore mentioning a coin minted in Corinth would provide clues on where the gospel was written (and possibly by whom). And "quadrans" fits with the rest of the Roman & latinized insertions in an otherwise Greek text.

Yes, "quadrans" fits right in, especially with how Mark 15.16 glosses the perfectly easy and ordinary Greek word αὐλή with the Latin loan word πραιτῶριον.

I don't know to which extent you are ironically. But from what I have understood I would assume that no Latin-speaker needed a explain for the Greek word "αὐλή" because it was commonly used as a loan word in Latin.

[Roger Pearse]

Then there's the give unto Caesar denarii that Jesus calls for, even though denarii weren't used in Judea, nor 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 hope people will forgive me not wading through the thread. Possibly someone has already answered this. But ... "denarii were not used in Judaea"? Can I ask what the evidence for this is?

It sounds like an extraordinary claim, on the face of it. I've been watching Dr Caitlin R. Green's posts on twitter of coins in Dark Ages England, from incredibly remote distances - even from China, if I recall correctly.

Modern coins have no intrinsic value. They are accepted only because a government guarantees their value, as indicated by the image and lettering on them. But in ancient societies, where the government was very remote, the reverse was the case. The image and lettering were not a guarantee on worthless metal - they were a form of worthless advertising for a ruler whom might otherwise be nearly invisible on a lump of metal that was valuable. What mattered was the weight of silver, or gold. The coin was a conveniently-sized lump of a precious metal. Naturally such coins could travel more or less anywhere, and be accepted, not because they said "Augustus Caesar" on them, but because they were so much weight of silver. Indeed for gold coins today, real gold, the same applies even now.

The idea that a country with a garrison of Roman troops, paid in denarii, did not see denarii in circulation among the people who sold goods to those soldiers seems, on the face of it, very odd. That same country received visitors from all over the world. Do we believe that none of them had Roman coins?

I don't know what the volume referenced might be - a google search tells me that Spin's post right here is the main source for "Meshorrer's Judean coin" catalogues. Anybody know what is referred to here? I find no results *at all* for author=Meshorrer in http://www.copac.ac.uk, the union catalogue of UK research libraries. But numismatics is not something I know much about.

[spin]

M(u)y bad: Ya'akov Meshorrer. If you know anything about ancient Jewish coinage, it's either Meshorer or someone who cites him. (A meshorrer is a singer.)

[Roger Pearse]

Well, I know nothing about it, in common with everyone else in this forum I suspect. But I see you refer to "Yaakov Meshorer, Ancient Jewish Coinage Vol. 2 Herod the Great through Bar Cochba, 1982" elsewhere in this forum - is this what you have in mind? Have you consulted it yourself?

Now I'm not clear what precisely the claim is. First is that the volume in question, or are there others? Are you saying that Meshorer says that denarii did not circulate, and if so where does he say this? Or are you saying that Meshorer's volume(s) do not list any denarii found in what was Judaea in this period, and from this you personally infer that none were to be found in Judaea when Pontius was a Pilate?

Of course we might ask whether we are quite sure that Pontius Pilate himself didn't have any denarii! It conjures up an interesting picture: did he have someone frisk people coming into the praetorium in case they had Roman coins?! Ahem.

It all sounds very implausible to me, but I am certainly prepared to be convinced. Presumably the argument would have to be that for religious reasons the Jews only used ... erm ... again I find myself unclear as to the claim being made ... um, coins without pictures?

[Roger Pearse]

A brief google search locates a volume on Qumran, discussing coin finds there: "Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community, Volume 40", p.312.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fUP ... &lpg=PA312

The Usfiyeh hoard of the mid-first century AD contains 160 Roman denarii of Augustus. But the book also indicates that paying the half-shekel temple tax actually required the use of Roman denarii for a surcharge. (I'm not sure I follow the argument, I must say, but I'm on the run). Similar proportions of coin finds (including denarii) are found at Qumran.

[Ben C. Smith]

Maybe no quadrantes were found in Egypt also. But that would not prevent Corinthians to know about quadrantes, due to Corinth trading with Rome, its proximity with Italy, an influx of italian expats and discovery of early imperial quadrantes in the city. Furthermore mentioning a coin minted in Corinth would provide clues on where the gospel was written (and possibly by whom). And "quadrans" fits with the rest of the Roman & latinized insertions in an otherwise Greek text.

Yes, "quadrans" fits right in, especially with how Mark 15.16 glosses the perfectly easy and ordinary Greek word αὐλή with the Latin loan word πραιτῶριον.

I don't know to which extent you are ironically. But from what I have understood I would assume that no Latin-speaker needed a explain for the Greek word "αὐλή" because it was commonly used as a loan word in Latin.

My point is actually that no Greek speaker would need an explanation for αὐλή.

[Roger Pearse]

Usifiyeh appears to be better known as Isfiya, and is near Mount Carmel. The hoard was mostly Jewish coins, but the rest was denarii.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Yes, "quadrans" fits right in, especially with how Mark 15.16 glosses the perfectly easy and ordinary Greek word αὐλή with the Latin loan word πραιτῶριον.

I don't know to which extent you are ironically. But from what I have understood I would assume that no Latin-speaker needed a explain for the Greek word "αὐλή" because it was commonly used as a loan word in Latin.

My point is actually that no Greek speaker would need an explanation for αὐλή.

I have understand this. But I disagree with you that this is the assumed "explanation for a Roman audience" because also no Latin speaker need a explanation for the word.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

btw: Is there an ancient greek source before Mark which used the word „λεπτόν“ as a description of a coin? I could only find texts in which it is used as an adjective with a noun, in the sense of a “small or light or thin” coin.

This one might be of interest
Plutarch, Cicero, 29.4

the latter was called Quadrantia, because one of her lovers had put copper coins into a purse and sent them to her for silver, and the smallest copper coin was called ‘quadrans.’
ἣν Κουαδρανταρίαν ἐκάλουν, ὅτι τῶν ἐραστῶν τις αὐτῇ χαλκοῦς ἐμβαλὼν εἰς βαλάντιον ὡς ἀργύριον εἰσέπεμψε: τὸ δὲ λεπτότατον τοῦ χαλκοῦ νομίσματος κουαδράντην ἐκάλουν