Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 3748901, member: 72790&quot;]This is hardly a new topic and it has been addressed here before. The common consensus is that it was a denarius of Tiberius, the reigning emperor at the time of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, circa 28 AD. Many of these denarii are specifically marketed as &quot;Tribute Pennies&quot;, the English term, penny, as the translation of the Latin denarius. It seems like common sense. Tiberius was Caesar at that time and his image was on the coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>But there are some doubts that it was this coin. As a matter of fact that coin might not have been a denarius at all. The term used in the Synoptic Gospels is denarius (denarios in the original koine Greek versions) and the term drachma was also used in the parable of the woman who lost a coin labelled a drachma, so a distinction between denarius and drachma was understood by the authors of those three Gospels. They wrote denarius when they could have used drachma. But, some have argued that the use of denarius was not for the exact denomination but as a word for any generic small silver coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also there has been advanced the theory that the coin was a didrachma of Tyre as the Jewish Temple tax was paid in these coins. That is true, but the tax being brought up by the Pharisees was the tax not to the Jewish authorities of the Temple in Jerusalem but for payment in Rome, the payment of the Tributum Capitis or poll tax which was one denarius per person&nbsp; (Coin&nbsp; Dictionary Guide by C.C. Chamberlain, p.238). It is unlikely that Roman tax gatherers would want Eastern coinage for this payment. But the author of the Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins, John Melville Jones, p.307, thinks that those tax gatherers would accept silver from eastern mints, drachmas, if they had the image of a Roman emperor on them, perhaps similar to the drachmas of Caesarea in Cappadocia which did have the imperial bust at that time. David Sear in his Vol 2 of Roman Silver Coins, p.4. and p. 2 has pictures of drachmas of that city which very much resemble the Tiberius denarius. Sear also has some of these coins pictured in his Greek Imperial Coins p.26. especially Sear 289.&nbsp; So it is quite possible that the Tribute Penny was&nbsp; actually an Eastern Greek Imperial, or provincial issue.</p><p><br /></p><p>For those who prefer to stick to the literal description of the Tribute Penny being a Roman imperial denarius, that&#039;s fine, but was it one of Tiberius? What kind of denarius, or more properly, which emperor&#039;s denarii, were to be found in circulation most commonly in the Holy Land circa 28AD? The Tribute Penny with Tiberius on the obverse and Livia seated on the reverse was first minted sometime after 16 AD, in large numbers and presumably some had made their way to that region. Roman troops in that area, which were mostly Syrian auxiliaries, may have been paid in these coins and would have put them into circulation. But Reinhard Wolterns on page 347 of chapter 18 of Selections from Numismatist Magazine thinks that the massive mintage of the Gaius and Lucius denarii put out by Augustus about the time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth were far more commonly to be found in circulation than the more recent coinage of Tiberius. If you look at my two denarii pictured here on the obverse, they look very similar. By the way the Cappadocian drachma I have here would not be a Tribute Penny as it has the image of a Cappadocian ruler, probably Ariarathes, but I don&#039;t have one of the later imperil issues I mentioned above. In weight and fineness, however, it is quite similar to the denarius (this one is 3.9 grams, the same as the denarius of Tiberius I have pictured).</p><p><br /></p><p>So bottom line is just what coin is the Tribute Penny of the Gospels? My own opinion is that the drachmas of Caesarea, the ones with the imperial image, with the same weight and fineness and image of either Augustus or Tiberius, in common circulation in the Levant, just might have been the coin. If it was a Roman imperial denarius from Lugdunum or Rome, I think it just as likely to have been an older coin of Augustus Caesar as one more recently minted of Tiberius Caesar. What think you? [ATTACH=full]1005420[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1005421[/ATTACH] Please post your images, especially any of those Caesarea early imperials you might have so we can consider them a likely candidate and you opinion of what coin the Tribute Penny actually was.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in