The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
Posts: 2110
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2013 2:19 pm
Location: Leipzig, Germany
Contact:

Re: The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Paul the Uncertain wrote: Sun Feb 04, 2018 12:23 am Superfluous specificity is a well-worn device to achieve a feeling of realism. Another poster has already mentioned geographic details in Mark that don't correspond with reality.
Agreed.

I like the article too, but I think there are two presumptions. First, that Mark wrote about a (probably anachronistic) historical reality in Judea. Zeichmann did not take into consideration that the "Sitz im Leben" could be problems of early Christians in Rome, Greece or Asia and the whole story is just a stand-in. The second assumption is his claim that there was no poll tax (tributum capitis) in Judea before 71 CE. So far I know there is neither evidence for nor against a poll tax in the time of Jesus. The scholarly view that there was a poll tax in Judea is not only based on the Gospels, but also on the further evidence that the poll tax was a usual tax in most other countries under Roman government.
archibald
Posts: 323
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2017 12:07 pm
Location: Northern Ireland

Re: The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Post by archibald »

Jax wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:01 pm
archibald wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 10:09 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:56 am
archibald wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:54 am 'Mark' might have goofed (again) then?
Engaged in an anachronism, yes. What does the "again" refer to, specifically?
Doesn't he make a few geographical errors, such as pigs in Gerasa jumping 30 km (horizontally) into the sea of Galilee, or Jesus passing through Sidon on the way from Tyre to the sea of Galilee (through the borders of the Decapolis)?
From the notes in the paper,
Mark contains a number of geographic anomalies that might indicate the author’s unfamiliarity with the southern Levant (e.g., Gerasa on the coast of Gennesaret in 5:1). But geographic errors are common in other writings from the region, for example, the numerous errors in Josephus’s representation of the region. See Ze’ev Safrai, “The Description of the Land of Israel in Josephus’ Works,” in Josephus, the Bible, and History (ed.
Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata; Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988) 295
The author further adds references to the effect that Mark is writing in the southern Levant.
11 For insights about Galilee, see, e.g., Robert Henry Lightfoot, Locality and Doctrine in the
Gospels (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938) 178 ;־Ernst Lohmeyer, Galiläa und Jerusalem
(FRLANT 52; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1936) 3536 ;־Howard Clark Kee, Community
ofthe NewAge: Studies in Mark’ s Gospel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977); Werner H. Kelber, The
Kingdom in Mark: A New Place and a New Time (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974).
Galilean provenance is argued in, e.g., William E. Amal, “The Gospel ofMark as Reflection
on Exile and Identity,” in Introducing Religion: Essays in Honor ofJonathan Z. Smith (ed. Willi
Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon; London: Equinox, 2008) 5767 ;־M. Eugene Boring, Mark: A
Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006) 1520 ;־Joanna Dewey, “A Galilean
Provenance for the Gospel of Mark?” Forum [Third Series] 2 (2013) 10120 ;־Richard A. Horsley,
Hearing the Whole Story: ThePolitics ofPlot in Mark ’ s Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox,
2001) 2752 ;־Willi Marxen, Mark the Evangelist: Studies on the Redaction History ofthe Gospel
(2nd ed.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1969) 54116 ;־David M. Rhoads, Joanna Dewey, and Donald Michie,
Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative ofa Gospel (3rd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012)
14651 ; ־Roskam, Purpose ofthe Gospel ofMark, 94113 ; ־cf. Theissen, Gospels in Context, 23671.־
Mark’s composition has been located at other sites in Judea, including Caesarea Maritima,
according to Ellis, “Date and Provenance”; and Jerusalem, according to Dean W. Chapman,
“Locating the Gospel of Mark: A Model ofAgrarian Biography,” BTB 25 (1995) 2436 ;־Robert A.
Guelich, Mark 1-8:26 (WBC 34A; Dallas: Nelson, 1989) xxviii; Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel
ofMark: A Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002) 1116 .־See also the suggestions ofthe
Decapolis, according to Timothy Wardle, “Mark, the Jerusalem Temple and Jewish Sectarianism:
Why Geographical Proximity Matters in Determining the Provenance of Mark,” NTS 62 (2015)
6078 ;־Marcus, “Jewish War,” 46162 ;־and Caesarea Philippi, according to Thomas Schmeller,
“Jesus im Umland Galiläas: Zu den markinischen Berichten vom Aufenthalt Jesu in den Gebieten
von Tyros, Caesarea Philippi und der Dekapolis,” BZ 38 (1994) 4466 ;־Theodore J. Weeden, “The
Case for Caesarea Philippi as the Provenance for the Markan Community,” Forum [New Series] 6
(2003) 277־86.
Most arguments for Mark’s Levantine provenance are accompanied by a discussion of the
problems with the primary alternative, namely, the hypothesis that Mark was composed in Rome.
Some of the more salient counterarguments regarding Mark’s composition in or near the city of
Rome include the following: (1) It is sometimes supposed that Mark’s Latinisms indicate a
provenance where Latin was the common tongue, which could be Rome. Mark’s Latinisms,
however, are not the type of mundane, quotidian terms that one would expect in a Latin-fluent
context. They are primarily administrative and military terms that are associated specifically with
Roman administration and might be used in a foreign environment (e.g., speculator, centurio praetorium,flagello, legio); cf. n. 29 below
Sure. I wouldn't myself like to make a strong claim as to where 'Mark' wrote from.
FransJVermeiren
Posts: 253
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2016 1:14 am
Contact:

Re: The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Post by FransJVermeiren »

Thank you Ben for the attention you draw to Zeichmann’s excellent article. I really love this kind of stuff.

Some reflections:
• The numismatic evidence that denarii were rare in Palestine before the war is an eye-opener to me. In combination with the other evidence it makes Zeichmann’s argumentation quite solid.
• I agree with Zeichmann’s position against an ageless reading of this fragment: “Mark’s taxation pericope should thus be understood as historically specific in its scope”.
• The content of the taxation pericope is warlike as its subject is a negative effect of the war – the new and hated fiscus Iudaicus.
• Zeichmann’s dating of Mark is in line with my viewpoint that the gospels cannot have been written before the war because the crucial events they describe are war events (66-70 CE).
• I don’t follow Zeichmann when he speaks of Jesus’ context as opposed to Mark’s. I believe there is only one chronological context in the origins of Christianity, and that’s the war context.

Denarii are also mentioned in Revelation 6:6: A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius.
The numismatic evidence points in the direction of my interpretation of this verse. It describes the famine prices for essential foodstuffs during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Revelation 6 discusses Vespasian and Titus; verse 6 is part of the description of Titus and his deeds.
www.waroriginsofchristianity.com

The practical modes of concealment are limited only by the imaginative capacity of subordinates. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance.
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

FransJVermeiren wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 1:14 pm Thank you Ben for the attention you draw to Zeichmann’s excellent article. I really love this kind of stuff.
Thanks. :) I do too.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Post by neilgodfrey »

Bernard Muller wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 10:10 am I think there is nothing historical about Mk 12:13-17 (and all activities of Jesus in the temple after the "disturbance").
"Mark" invented the story in order to incite his Christians to pay tax to the Romans, as did earlier Paul (Ro 13:6-7), without knowing about details of taxation in Judea some 40 years earlier.

Cordially, Bernard
I don't think there is anything historical about the James Bond stories but their author clearly drew upon known facts of the Cold War era and those details alone tell us that the novels could not possibly have been written before the 1950s.

Further, the argument of Z itself suggests that the incident/saying of Jesus was NOT historical but arose in a later period from that of Jesus.
vridar.org Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3412
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Post by DCHindley »

DCHindley wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:37 pm I've downloaded the article but must read it later.

A while back, in the Crosstalk2 days, I compiled a post on Roman and Jewish taxation policy in general. It was based on, or at least informed by, Fabian Idoh's PhD thesis that was later expanded into his book on Roman taxation policy.

Let me take a look again.
I guess it was drawn primarily on info I culled from the revised English Translation of Schürer's History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (1980s, but I thought pretty good).

Other info was drawn from Fabian Udoh's 1996 Duke University PhD dissertation Tribute & Taxes in Early Roman Palestine (63 BCE-70 CE): The Evidence from Josephus

Udoh, who went on to teach at the University of Notre Dame in S. Bend, Indiana, USA, has broken from Notre Dame due to a dispute over withheld tenure, and I believe he is currently at McGill in Canada for close to 10 years now. I wrote a review of the dissertation (that was all I had at the time, the book still being in "forthcoming" status and no one knew when it would actually be published) in Feb 2003 and asked for his input, but I think I was sending e-mail to his Notre Dame e-mail but after he had quit, so I doubt he ever read it, much less responded. The review is posted on Crosstalk2
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/cro ... ages/12723 *

It was finally published, apparently much as the dissertation was written, in 2005 as To Caesar What Is Caesar’s: Tribute, Taxes, and Imperial Administration in Early Roman Palestine 63 B.C.E.–70 C.E.. I found a free copy of the book available online (you'll have to search for it) so it is available to just about anybody, hopefully with Udoh's blessing. I'll have to read through it (I never really read the book, only the dissertation) to pull out what he has to say about the temple tax pericope.

DCH

* For those who can no longer stand the Yahoo Groups web interface, here is the review in full in all its naiveté:
I chanced across a 2001 reference to a "forthcoming" book by
Fabian Eugene Udoh Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Program of Liberal Studies,
Notre Dame University, on Roman taxation of Palestine. After some research,
I did not find the book had reached the stage of publication, but I did find
that it would probably be based on Udoh's doctoral dissertation, _Tribute
and Taxes in Early Roman Palestine (63 BCE - 70 CE): The Evidence from
Josephus_, earned Dec. 9th, 1996 at Duke University under supervision of E.
P. Sanders. The review committee included Eric M. Meyers, Dwight Moody
Smith, Dale B. Martin and John F. Oates. The microfilmed master copy is
archived by Bell & Howell's UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, MI, (1997)
and if you look real hard you may find a bound facsimile copy in a
university library (I found the only copy in academic libraries in the state
of Ohio, USA, at Ohio State University, dated 2000).

Having previously mulled over the socio-economic assumptions of Gerd
Theissen as they related to interpretation of the _Didache_ (_Sociology of
Early Palestinian Christianity_, 1978, and _Social Reality and the Early
Christians_, 1992), and Richard Horsley's passionate rebuttal of Theissen's
initial position (_Sociology and the Jesus Movement_, 1989), I had more than
idle curiosity about the subject.

Over the past couple of years I had read and summarized the information
scattered about vol. 1 of Emil Schurer's revised _Jewish People_ (1973),
which was posted here a little while ago, as well as Jack Pastor's _Land and
Economy in Ancient Palestine_ (1997), and David A. Fiensy's _The Social
History of Palestine in the Herodian Period: The Land is Mine_ (1991). Nikos
Kokkinos' _Herodian Dynasty_ is still on my "to-do" list, although he has
told me privately that it does not contain a lot of specific economic
information. In addition I had read an interesting essay entitled "The
Socio-Economic Background of Christianity in Egypt" in _The Roots of
Egyptian Christianity_, Birger A. Pearson & James E. Goehring eds., (1986).
All these sources of information were fascinating, but all had obvious
shortcomings which left the impression in my mind that things were being
assumed without sufficient investigation, and several loose ends were left
dangling.

As a result I was a bit apprehensive when I began reading Udoh's
dissertation, fearing more of the same. To my happy surprise, I found a
really well researched and well presented work on the subject. Udoh comes
to some conclusions that contradict the consensus about such things as the
nature of the direct taxes demanded of Judaeans and Galileans by the Romans
(favoring in-kind agricultural and tolls without a poll tax, a position I
had not personally encountered before), and the degree of taxation Herod's
subjects were subjected to (not nearly as bad as Josephus claims or as
assumed by most modern commentators, but confirming the opinions of Pastor
and Fiensy).

Through careful analysis of the various source passages that serve as our
evidence, Udoh systematically uncovers flaws in the assumptions of others
while stressing evidence that is often passed over too quickly (such as the
fact that Josephus only speaks of "registration" in the time of Quirinius,
meaning strictly a property registration, but not specifically mentioning
any poll tax). I was quite surprised to learn that the existence of poll
taxes in Judaea after 6 CE is based entirely on conjecture through analogy
to practices known from other parts of the Roman empire (or even Seleucid
tax policies), and not on direct evidence. Schurer, for instance, proceeded
as if the existence of a direct poll tax was a given.

Udoh is critical of these kind of broad generalizations based on practices
in Egypt, Asia and Syria, arguing that the Roman tax system was a patchwork
of policies combining elements of poll, property, agricultural, tolls and
sales taxes, with even the arbitrary appropriation of large sums at times,
and dictated by the demands and limitations of time and place. This general
subject was already of interest to me from my reading of James C. Scott's
books (_Weapons of the Weak_, 1985, _Domination and the Arts of Resistance_,
1990, and especially _The Moral Economy of the Peasant_, 1976). Scott had
illustrated the many and various methods by which landlords and governments
can extract rents and taxes from tenant farmers and townsfolk, with each
method having its advantages and disadvantages, depending on which end of
the tax or rent relationship you sit.

Udoh intentionally did not attempt to make use of modern socio-economic
theory in his dissertation, preferring to limit his inquiry to direct
sources of the period and place under inquiry. While he certainly seems to
be aware of the variety of taxation techniques available to ancient
governments, I felt he could have gone into more detail about their
practical effect upon the population, similar to the way he does when it
comes to their effect on a government's ability to collect or administer
revenues. I have seen, for instance, cases where historical accounts of
cities taking all grain supplies from the city's peasant farmers during
periods of famine, are taken as "proof" of the increasingly oppressive
nature of Roman era government (e.g., G. E. M. de Ste. Croix in _The Class
Struggle in the Ancient Greek World_, 1981, or J. Dominic Crossan in _Birth
of Christianity_, 1998), when it could *also* just as easily have been
explained as the "negative" side of a lease plan that stipulated a flat rent
per "acre" based upon average yields, which would have been to the peasants'
decided *advantage* in years of good harvests.

Udoh also touches upon the effect of Jewish tithing practices, concluding
that they did not amount to "double taxation." Here he is in debt to the
work of E. P. Sanders, another author whose books I have been acquiring for
several years. I would have liked to see more attention directed to the form
of the Jewish government. I got the impression that Udoh assumed that it
took a form resembling a "temple state," which I know from other reading is
a minority opinion. It seems to me that there are some far reaching
implications of whether such an assumption is factual or not.

This dissertation is, for an amateur sleuth like me, a "keeper." I also
think it has substantial value for the professional scholar as well!
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3412
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Post by DCHindley »

For anyone interested, here is the summary of Schürer on Roman and Herodian Taxation policy I posted in Jan 2003:
(Hindley, David C) References to Roman tax policies (fr E Schürer’s The Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, Rev ET ed by Vermes, Miller & Black, 1973).

A) Roman Citizens:

“The original Roman census as it developed during the time of the Republic concerned only Roman Citizens. It was an inventory of Roman citizens and their possessions taken for two purposes:

(1) the regulation of military service, and

(2) the collection of direct taxes. The [citizen] to be assessed had to report to the censor and declare his possessions; but it was the custom for the head of the family to make the declaration for himself and the whole family.” (p. 401)

“Under the Empire, and even in the later years of the Republic, the census of Roman citizens had completely lost its original significance since they (i.e., the whole of Italy and colonies with [the legal designation of] *Ius Italicum*) no longer paid direct taxes or were liable to regular or universal conscription. If therefore Augustus, Claudius and Vespasian [who carried out the last full census of Roman citizens in AD 73/74] still took censuses of Roman citizens, it was only for the purpose of statistics or because of the religious ceremonies connected with them, but not for the levying of taxes.” (p. 401)

B) The Provinces:

“The provincial census was fundamentally different [from a census of Roman citizens], the control of taxation being its main function. There was great diversity, too, even in this respect in the early days of the Empire. In general, however, the same principals were applied which in later juristic documents ([compiled in] Digest. L, 15: De censibus) are presumed to prevail everywhere.” (p. 401).

C) How was it conducted?

“As far as the provincial census is concerned, i.e., the preparation of lists for the purpose of taxation, this was conducted in the same manner as the census of Roman citizens.” (p. 403)

D) What taxes were involved?

“From these it is evident that there were two kinds of direct taxes for the provinces: [and from here on I am paraphrasing pp. 401-403, but keep the original wording whenever I can]”

(1) a tax on agricultural produce, *tributum soli*. [This] was paid partly in kind, partly in money. [e.g., Egypt and parts of Africa supplied through this tax enough grain to feed all Italy].

(2) a poll-tax, *tributum capitis*. The second included various kinds of personal taxes:

(a) a property tax which varied according to a person’s capital valuation.
For example, in Appian’s time non-Roman citizens resident in Syria and Cilicia paid a tax of 1% of the amount of valuation. There does appear to be a question as to whether the valuation tax was further split between landed property and moveable possessions.

(b) a poll-tax proper at a flat rate per all capita [“heads”]. Women and slaves were also subject to this tax. Only children and old people were exempt. In Egypt a poll-tax was levied that was not identical for all the inhabitants but varied for each category of the population. This was accomplished by segregating the country into communities with a privileged class of “metropolites” subject to a lower rate. In Syria, men aged 14-65 and women aged 12-65, were subject to poll-taxes. In Egypt, the obligation lasted from the age of 14 to 60 or 61.

“In both [the above] cases [of poll-taxes] the expressions *edere* [i.e., to put forth, or give out, (documents or data)], *deferre censum* [i.e., to report, or bring certain things, to the place where the census was conducted in his area], [and] *profitari* [i.e., to make a public statement, or make a (tax) return of property] were used, from which it is evident that the taxpayer himself had to submit the necessary data, which were then checked by the officials. This declaration had to be made in the chief town of each taxation district; indeed, landed estates were required to be registered for taxation in the communities in which they are situated.” (p. 403).

E) Frequency:

“No regular census was taken in Republican times of the nations subject to Rome. They were conducted here and there, but were not closely connected either with each other, or with the census of Roman citizens.” (p. 401)

“[in later periods i]t is not known for sure how often the censuses were renewed. A clear idea of this can only be gained in the case of Egypt, because of the abundant material which the papyrus finds in that country have brought to light. In Roman times there were two kinds of periodic registration (*apographai*), for which the inhabitants themselves were obliged to supply the information.

(1) Every fourteen years each house-owner was required to deliver to the authorities a list of those residing in his house during the past year [see D2b above]. These registers, called *kat’ oikian apographai*, served mainly in the assessment of poll-tax. [in a footnote (#17), he says “It is possible, but not certain that these regular population counts [in Egypt] were introduced under Augustus. The earliest actually attested is that of A.D. 33/4, (or possibly A.D. 19/20...), and there is evidence for every census of the fourteen-year cycle from then until A.D. 258. It has been argued, however, that the cycle actually began in 10/9 B.C. - see esp. B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt on P. Oxy. 254---and even as early as 24/23 B.C., see [S. L.] Wallace, [Taxation in Egypt from Augustus to Diocletian (1938)] pp. 97-98, and Tcherikover in Journ. Juristic Pap. 4 (1950), p 18; for a skeptical view of the theory that the [Egyptian] cycle began under Augustus see Hombert, Preaux, [Recherches sur le recensement dans l’Egypte romaine (1952)], pp. 47-55.”] Presumably the reason for the fourteen-year period was that liability to pay the poll-tax began at the age of 14. It was therefor not necessary to supplement the lists with birth notices within the period. On the other hand, deaths appear to have been regularly registered with the authorities. The lists supplied evidence for the *epikrisis*, or examination to determine status, and the consequent liability for poll tax. [He doesn’t specifically say so in this place, but based on what is stated in D2a above, it appears that at this same time that landed property was also declared. See the final paragraph, and my comment, of section E2 below.]

(2) Each year, every property-owner had to give a written record, applying to the current year, of his movable possessions such as cattle, ships and slaves. These declarations for tax purposes are also called *apographai*. The tax was then determined on the basis of the details supplied, these latter having been checked by the authorities.” Footnote #20 adds “Wilcken supposed, in his Ostraka I, pp. 456-469, that the annual property declarations included landed property as well, and not only movable possessions. The general inclusion of landed property only took place when there was a need for it, and was specially ordered in each case. Moreover, the official registers of landed property were kept up to date because of the notices served on each change of ownership [i.e., under normal circumstances, ownership of landed property can be tracked through each 14 year cycle through deeds filed with authorities.]”. (pp. 403-404)

The situation in the Tetrarchy of Antipas is another matter. I have some sources to offer but it will have to wait until after work today because it is not in summarized form.
DCH
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3412
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Post by DCHindley »

Mr Hindley, you are most evil and to be scorned. The very next day after the post you relate above, you blather the following babble:
The more I look at the 6 CE revolts, the more
I wonder whether the real objection to the census was not so much on the
grounds of a poll tax (if that is in fact what the Romans instituted), but
rather "land reform."

It is not settled just how land tenure was organized under Herod, but the
quasi-fiction of the holy-land being owned by God with individual families
sort of leasing it in return for tithes to the temple (which in turn "paid"
the tribute for Herod the king) may have been replaced then with a cold,
hard, situation in which the Romans leased it to large landholders (elites)
who in turn rented it to families as tenants with direct taxes replacing
tithes to the temple.

This all revolves about the debate over whether the Jerusalem temple acted,
whether legally or fictionally, as a "temple state." Even if it did, temple
lands still were under the direct actual control of the king by means of
appointed managers, if the situation that prevailed in Egypt was in any way
typical of Palestine under Herod, but often "myths" of this sort capture the
imaginations of the common people.

In Egypt, one thing that did change upon the institution of Roman rule was
the eventual confiscation of large tracts of "temple" land (leaving only
enough for the maintenance of the priests) and the wholesale leasing of that
land to individual elites (sometimes as "gifts" - meaning assigning
temporary control in return for service - but also outright sale of land as
hereditary property was growing in popularity) who were directly responsible
for tax payment (in grain) and who then obtained the necessary grain by
subletting the land to tenants for a fixed fee per measure of area.

If the Jerusalem temple ceased to be the real or fictional "owner" of the
land (certainly in Judea but also possibly in a "legal" sense in the areas
ruled by Antipas and Philip, although they would have always effectively
controlled it through managers), the common peasant would have been keenly
aware of the fact (if only by the replacement of his tithes based on yield
with rents based on fixed amounts of grain per measured area regardless of
yield) that God's temple was no longer in charge of the land. Low-level
elites in control of some of these larger tracts made an effort to maintain
the tithe system on a voluntary basis (e.g., the Pharisees), but they were
effectively "tax collectors." Perhaps this explains the large number of
people the NT describes disdainfully as tax collectors and "sinners"
(collaborators?).
You never did follow up on that subject of tax policy among Herod and his family, you evil man! But, by gawd, there is even more, from Feb 2004:
Not to flog a dead horse or anything, but I'd like to bring up - again - the
subject of the relationship of city/town to countryside.

It seems to me that the basic organization of the political entities active
in the Roman world, including the Levant, would look something like this:

Roman Government <- Provinces <- Towns OR City States OR Client
Principalities

Provinces <- Capital <- Towns OR City States

Kingdoms (client principalities) = (Capital <- Towns (a few of which might
be constituted as a POLIS)

Towns <- CWRA (countryside) = (Villages <- Farmers)

POLIS (city state) <- AGROI (fields belonging to the city state, for which
CWRA was often used as a synonym) = (Villages <- Farmers)

Arrows are used to show the direction of flow of the "excess" production of
the farmers. The relationships get a little messy, and a lot of technical
terminology gets used pretty loosely, not just by modern critics but by the
ancient sources as well. However, the excess production is passed from
farmer to villages, and from villages to towns or city states, and from
these entities to the crown or the regional governments.

It always starts as grain ("in kind"), and the villages and towns and city
states each stockpile grain to 1) pay taxes, and 2) hedge against famine
years, usually a years supply.

However, it is hard for elites to conspicuously consume grain alone. They
want to flout fancy clothes or villas or works of art. To effect this
consumption, stockpiled grain must be bartered for handicrafts and services
and non-grain foodstuffs produced or rendered by the farmers and by the
artisans living in the villages, towns and cities. Cash is also necessary
for any extensive trade to be possible, since exotic clothes, architectural
materials, food or art are much preferred over local cloth, wool, locally
smelted metals, wine, etc. Also, how does a town or city pay its taxes? The
answer is that it depended on a lot of factors. Some was undoubtedly
shipped, still in the form of grain, from coastal towns and cities to Rome.
Herod made some pretty fine deals, gaining control of coastal towns in order
to pay at least some of his tribute "in kind."

Whatever the circumstances, once grain gets to regional capitals and
certainly by the time it reaches the king or the Romans, taxes collected "in
kind" must be converted to cash.

But to get back to how the existence of two major towns (the newer capital
Tiberias, and the former capital Sepphoris, now a major administrative
center) affected the peasant farmers, consider this. We are dealing with a
client principality that was by and large, with relatively few exceptions,
not organized on a Hellenistic/Roman model. Crossan's conclusions about the
unbearable new demands assumes city states (the Hellenistic model), not the
less centralized towns within a principality like Galilee. There are issues
to consider related to whom the farmers are obligated and the conditions
under which they pay their rents. This, I believe, has more direct
importance than the implications of the presence of Hellenistic theaters and
gymnasiums and Roman style baths.

King Herod paid his tribute both "in kind" and by cash. When cash was
exacted (especially during the civil wars between Roman power figures) Herod
demanded the money directly from regional governors, *not* from individual
farmers. This suggests that the bulk of the tax grain that got converted to
cash came from government controlled land which the farmers were leasing,
either directly from the crown or from crown retainers. The cost of Royal
tax obligations were factored into the rents the farmers paid (say, 50%
instead of 33% of the yield).

We can also presume a highly organized and efficient process was established
in Herod's territories (or less likely already present, since Herod seemed
to be so much better at converting produce into cash than his predecessors
had been) to convert grain to cash (or at least into easily transportable
barter goods with equivalent cash value) as the wealth passed through the
successive levels of regional government. In spite of this taxation, his
kingdom thrived and material culture actually improved. I am not aware of
any evidence that Antipas changed his dad's basic organizational structure
when he took over rule of Galilee.

There were surely differences between the leases imposed on farmers working
the land of a city-state, or the land controlled by the Roman province of
Judaea, or Royal land or even land in estates owned or controlled by the
Herodian family and their principal retainers! When critics read the
accounts of Galen or Philostratus that relate how in certain instances city
states and towns took control of almost all the grain produced by farmers,
leaving the farmers to fend for themselves (eating boiled grass, twigs,
etc), and conclude rather summarily that this is incontrovertible proof that
the Romans were especially harsh on the peasantry, I think they have made a
conscious choice to ignore lease types that might account for this
phenomenon.

James C. Scott discusses the vastly different economic implications of
several arrangements he found in SE Asia, and these basic forms of leases
are very similar to those documented in the ancient Mediterranean region.
One type, in which the rent is set at a level that assumes some agreed-upon
average yield, actually benefits the farmer in bounty years (i.e., 50% of
the time!) but can cost them dearly in famine years (the other 50%)
especially if they occur successively for several years. Even G. E. M. de
Ste Croix, a Crossan favorite who otherwise is quite aware of the
implication of the various kinds of lease arrangements, falls into this
(ideological) trap in Chapters I.iii (pp 13-14) and IV.ii (pp 219-221) of
his _The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World_ (Cornell U.P., 1981).

Crossan's conclusions also seem to assume that the area of land under
cultivation in Lower Galilee did not change after the establishment of
Tiberias. No land is ever 100% under cultivation. Scott illustrated many SE
Asian examples of how the introduction of more intense cultivation in areas
previously largely fallow energized the local economy and does benefit many
of the more industrious sort (I am thinking specifically of his treatment of
Cochin China = Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos = in the late 19th and early 20th
century). Crossan, however, summarily dismisses this kind of benefit in _B
of C_ when he says "[T]he Lenski-Kautsky model ... never presumes that new
cities turn unhappy peasants into happy entrepreneurs" (page 217).

However, way back when Crossan conducted his XTalk seminar, I looked very
closely at both Gerhard Lenski's _Power and Privilege_ (McGraw-Hill, 1966),
and John Kautsky's _The Politics of Aristocratic Empires_ (U. of NC Press,
1982), comparing them to what Crossan said they imply, and found he had
seriously misrepresented the positions of both these authors by selectively
quoting them, ascribing meanings to them that are directly contradicted by
other statements in the very works quoted.
Skippy (your evil twin :? ).
ChrisZeichmann
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 8:25 pm

Re: The census tax & the date of the gospel of Mark.

Post by ChrisZeichmann »

Hi Ben, et al! It's been a while since we last chatted - and about as long as I went to IIDB forums, I suppose! I can't remember if I ever told you, Ben, but you gave me feedback on a manuscript that ended up getting published in the Journal of Higher Criticism shortly before it went defunct: https://www.academia.edu/34646389/Fear_ ... ve_Stratum (you're mentioned in the first footnote - unfortunately JHC omitted all footnotes in the published version for reasons I can't fathom)

Thanks for the generally positive feedback. Just to address a few things that people mentioned:

1) It is true that there isn't much direct evidence one way or the other of monetary taxation in pre-War Palestine. That said, the sheer absence of high- or even mid-value coinage in the pre-War era suggests that taxation was largely exacted in kind rather than monetarily. Indeed, the references in Josephus all seem to suggest that taxes were strictly in-kind as well.

2) The issue of Markan provenance is contentious, as a few of you have noted. My own suspicion is that Mark was written in the village of Capernaum. I have argued for Capernaum in particular here: https://www.academia.edu/34412322/Caper ... Evangelist and either post-War Palestine or Syria here: https://www.academia.edu/34924189/Loanw ... omposition I don't expect that these will change the mind of anyone absolutely convinced to the contrary, but may give a sense for why I tend this direction.

3) You all are certainly correct that I suspect that the episode was largely - perhaps entirely - created by Mark. The version in the Gospel of Thomas (saying 100) is no more plausible, though I'm not really sure if it's independent of Mark or not.

Anyway, it's late, but thanks so much for taking an interest in my research!
Post Reply