The Temple Tax Coin in the Time of Jesus | Danny The Digger (2024)

FAQs

What were the temple tax coins? ›

At the Great Temple in Jerusalem the annual tax levied on Jews was 1/2 shekel per male. The 1/2 shekel and shekel were not always used in everyday commerce, but were the only coins accepted by the temple. Many taxpayers required a currency exchange, so money changers set up in the Temple court.

The money was needed because it was the duty of every male Jew who came to the temple to worship, to pay half a shekel for the upkeep of the temple, this was called 'Temple Tax. ' A half-shekel was equal to a third, or a fourth of a Denarius, or a penny and could only be paid in the temple.

Although the official name of the temple tax coin was half a shekel, Jewish sources record that the only coin type the priests acknowledged was the one called the Tyrian shekel.

The tribute penny was the coin that was shown to Jesus when he made his famous speech "Render unto Caesar..." It is usually thought that the coin was a Roman denarius with the head of Tiberius.

Jesus performed this miracle in order to not offend those who collected the two-drachma temple tax. This is the only miracle that Jesus performed in order to avoid offending people. Jesus typically performed miracles as well as made statements that were offensive to his audience, particularly the Jewish priesthood.

Remember, the Jews paid both Temple taxes and Tithes. Temple tax was a standard amount of two-drachma for all income strata which was collected for the upkeep of the temple, similar to an entrance fee of a museum. But Tithe is more similar to our present day income tax.

Peter answers by saying that even the kings of the earth do not require duty and taxes of their own sons. Jesus responds, “then the sons are exempt.” Jesus was under no obligation to pay the temple tax. In fact, Jesus was the true Temple in the sense that, being God incarnate, he was the ultimate dwelling place of God.

The question was whether the Lord Jesus paid tribute. Simon Peter said that He did. The Lord sent Peter to catch a fish and in its mouth was a coin to pay the Temple Tax for both of them. At this point, both the Lord Jesus and Peter were over 20.

Depending on which of the coins was used, in modern values of silver, these known coins would bring the sum to be between $250 and $300. Some scholars have observed that one silver coin was a working man's wage. So in modern terms, a worker getting $15 an hour in an eight-hour day would take would take home $120.

This fund was used to pay the wages of the Temple staff, who consisted of the inspectors of animal blemishes, the experts who taught the priests the laws of ritual slaughtering, examiners of the scrolls, and even the women who wove the curtains for the gates of the Temple.

Did Jesus throw the money changers out of the temple? ›

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

​​Judas Iscariot agrees to handover Jesus in exchange of thirty pieces of silver, according to an account in the Gospel of Matthew (26:15) in the New Testament: “14 Then one of the Twelve - the one called Judas Iscariot - went to the chief priests 15 and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to ...

Jesus Coin's price today is US$0.00000006869, with a 24-hour trading volume of $495,191. JESUS is -4.87% in the last 24 hours. It is currently -28.98% from its 7-day all-time high of $0.00000009672, and 14.52% from its 7-day all-time low of $0.00000005998. JESUS has a circulating supply of 151,426.49 B JESUS.

Jesus said, “Precisely, for the coin bears the image of the emperor Caesar. Well, then, you should pay the emperor what is due to the emperor. But because you bear the image of God, give back to God all that belongs to him.”

Then a poor widow came along and put in two small copper coins. Jesus teaches the disciples that the woman gave more than the rich. The poor woman, as a widow, would have had no source of income after her husband's death. Therefore the two small copper coins were all she had - and yet she offered them to God.

This Roman coin depicts the Temple of Janus Quirinus, a building destroyed long before the Renaissance. A representation of the coin appears in a late sixteenth-century book of commentary, illustrating a specific passage in Suetonius's biography of Augustus.

The Book of Ne introduces us to treasury-chambers in the second temple--now used for the voluntary offerings (tithes) of the people--grain, and wine, and oil (Nehemiah 13:4; compare Malachi 3:10).

Thirty silver coins received by Judas for betraying Jesus.

According to New Nave's Topical Bible, one who possessed five talents of gold or silver was a multimillionaire by today's standards. A silver shekel, on the other hand, was probably worth less than a dollar in today's market. A gold shekel was perhaps worth a little more than five dollars.