THE WIDOW'S MITE You know about Jesus' reference to the widow's donation of two mites in her offering to the Temple in Jerusalem (The Gospel of Mark, chapter 12, verses 38-44 and The Gospel of Luke, chapter 20, verses 45 and 47). Do you know the mite is made of bronze, and is a Judean coin known as a lepton minted by King Alexander Janneaus (103 - 76 B.C.)? The Judean word lepton translates to "small". The small, almost insignificant coin was the least valuable coin in the kingdom of Judea at the time.The Roman equivalent is the quadrans, but the quadrans was worth a little more. Here's an image link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Widowsmite.jpg Clinker
Thanks for the trivia. The anchor depicted on the coin is an adaptation of the Seleucid Anchor, a royal Seleucid symbol. It has appeared on various coins, in both the upright and inverted position. There are various stories as to why the symbol came about originally, the most plausible being that it represented naval power. It appears below on a 1949 Israeli prutah.
Clinker,the Widow's Mite is more correctly known as a Prutah in Hebrew,although the Ancient Greek name 'Lepton' is used. Aidan.
The ironic thing about that is that the Seleucids weren't Judean (i.e. Jewish). They were Macedonians, descended from Alexander the Great's general Seleucus.
The Maccabees & their successors,the Herodians were also not native rulers descended from the House of King David. Here's a couple of links; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabees & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodian_Dynasty . Aidan.
Very interesting trivia Clinker,thanks again! There is a runner-up prutah that also may have been the biblical "widow's mite".Alexander Jannaeus had at least one other basic design minted at about the same time as the star & anchor one.It has a cornucopia on the obverse and a "who knows what?" on the reverse,maybe grape leaves..I'm not sure.Here are a couple from my collection.
