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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 4543465, member: 93416&quot;]Lots of interesting thoughts - makes me return to reconsider the point made by [USER=99554]@Ocatarinetabellatchitchix[/USER]. Amplified by the Reiner article which Victor correctly summarises</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The Reiner article is very interesting – but - apparently contrary to [USER=110350]@DonnaML[/USER]&nbsp; – I do not find it compelling. Reiner quotes text running from Hammurabi to Godfrey of Viterbo (1800 BC to 1200 AD!). That seems troubling to me – since it seems unlikely Mark would have known of the first and certain he had no knowledge of the second. I suggest there are three ways to look at the passage in Mark</p><p><br /></p><p>(1) historically correctly</p><p><br /></p><p>(2) a story - but that specifically makes sense in early first century Judea</p><p><br /></p><p>(3) a story that makes sense to someone with a lot of knowledge of traditional sacred text (like Reiner)</p><p><br /></p><p>Personally I go with (1) or (2) – which does not exclude (3) but does imply a particular version of (3)</p><p><br /></p><p>Now 30 pieces of silver was c. 250g of silver under Hammurabi, and might be the blood price of a slave or a free man back then. In first century Judea (and neglecting a small adjustment for silver quality) it was either c. 420g of silver (Tyre tets), or c. 115g of silver (Tiberius denarii).</p><p><br /></p><p>I would still go with Tyre tet – and it seems to me that might be the sort of price of a slave for use in manual labour at that time. So there is a sense that the phrase is used pejoratively (ie for just the price of a slave). I would object rather strongly to calling it a “paltry sum”. I suspect a slave for instance would think it an rather large sum. As indeed would that well know widow of those times.</p><p><br /></p><p>Following through on that – if the writer did have in mind a realistic price of a slave in the 1st century AD – and it was c. 420g – then it seems to me it might well make sense for it specifically to mean “an (Attic) pound of silver”. Because slave trading would likely be an international venture, and in contrast, coins are tied to particular local markets. An international trader would not care what coins he was paid in – just the amount of silver he got…..</p><p><br /></p><p>[USER=33176]@Kentucky[/USER] reminds me that the earliest versions of Biblical texts were not in English. Hmmm, thanks for that. It seems the Targum (Aramaic) version of Zechariah did not include the phrase “30 piece of silver” found in later Greek versions. If anything that points in the direction of a 1st century interpretation of the phase, I would have thought.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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