That’s the very, very interesting thesis of Deborah Furlan Taylor in the current issue of CBQ (vol 71, #3). She argues in ‘The Monetary Crisis in Revelation 13:17 and the Provenance of the Book of Revelation‘ that, among other things,
There is … no meaningful archaeological evidence for the active circulation of Roman denarii in Palestine until the Flavian period. Moreover, none of the instances of ‘denarius’ in the NT provides evidence of the existence of the use of denarii in Palestine. Rather, they reflect various NT authors writing for an audience that used either denarius or a variety of local coinages linked to the denarius. (p. 585).
Her case is strong, with ample archaeological support. It’s a fine essay and very much worth the trouble of laying hands on if you don’t subscribe or your library doesn’t.
Posted by agathos on 07/01/2009 at 11:40
Revelatioon? Neologism?
Posted by Jim on 07/01/2009 at 12:47
nah- my finger lingered too long on the o.
Posted by steph on 07/02/2009 at 08:52
That’s very strange. It’s a bit like saying the NT isn’t enough evidence for the existence of Jesus. Do we assume Mark has no evidence of anything? Not enough archaeological support? Of course they were rare – only Romans used them and Herodiani might have had them. (“Absence of evidence is evidence of nothing”!). It makes nonsense out of Jesus asking them to bring him a denarius with Caesar’s inscription. I wonder what she thinks of the evidence Yabro Collins quotes. We’ll have to read the article!
(compare Chapter 9 of JN:IHVLT)
It’s archaeological mr slippery fingers!
Posted by Jim on 07/02/2009 at 10:03
the essay really is quite persuasive. for instance, the use of denarius in mark is no more indicative of the fact that jews in judea used them than the use of ‘penny’ in the kjv is proof that jews in judea used pennies!
currency is normally named according to the customs of the reader.
Posted by steph on 07/02/2009 at 10:14
of course, but then there is the date of mark… and the point of the story which was the inscription of Caesar. And chapter nine.
BTW it will be some time before I get the article. It isn’t downloadable and I presume I’ll have to get a hard copy.
Posted by steph on 07/02/2009 at 10:19
Ps – you need to change your ‘ligical’!
Posted by Jim on 07/02/2009 at 10:29
huh?
Posted by steph on 07/02/2009 at 10:31
Her case is strong, with ample archaeoligical support… ligical?
Posted by steph on 07/02/2009 at 10:24
It creates fiction out of a story in which someone does something unusual. Nobody is suggesting that the Jews in Judea used denarii – just that the Pharisees and Herodiani had one in the temple – and they shouldn’t have. It could even have been an old one. On the surface, her argumentlooks Meierian.
Posted by steph on 07/02/2009 at 11:10
It could also be the coinage of Tiberius remembering that Herod founded Tiberius and called it after him because he was so Romanised. And what possible motivation could the earliest Christians have for making up such an curious story?
Very Meierian.
Posted by steph on 07/03/2009 at 07:27
she hasn’t convinced me of anything we didn’t already know. We knew the denarius wasn’t ‘readily available’ in Palestine – but it was had by the Herodians, from Herod who was educated in Rome, and Jesus knew that! Her article is learned as far as making true general statements and that is impeccable but there is an academic tendency (especially in American social subgroups like the IQP, Jesus Seminar, Goodacrites, Meierians etc) to generalise and misapply comprehensively general truths to an otherwise true story of which there is no good reason to doubt and every reason to read as credible in Jesus’ Sitz im Leben. She is correct on the parables but completely wrong on Taxes to Caesar. Interestingly she concedes settling the matter is beyond the scope of her article…
Posted by steph on 07/03/2009 at 11:11
she’s a shocker, Jim. She conveniently leaves out the Herodians in her quote Taxes to Caesar. The Herodians would have had them in the temple. He knew they did when they shouldn’t have. Her own evidence undermines her argument that Mark made the denarus up. She says the tribute was paid by the authorities to Rome in denarii. Jesus’ point was that they had these coins in the Temple. She doesn’t discuss the evidence of coins found by Yabro Collins in his commentary on Mark and as far as the parables go, she suggests that the denarii were known if not used by the Jews (which nobody is suggesting they were) so Jesus could quite easily have used denarii when addressing the wealthy Simon (although I’m not so sure whether Luke thought the story literally true)
Posted by Jim on 07/03/2009 at 11:15
i havent seen collins’ mark volume.
Posted by steph on 07/03/2009 at 11:49
It’s his 2007 Hermeneia commentary published by Fortress.
Posted by steph on 07/03/2009 at 11:53
and I’m sorry – if I had a camera I’d do you the same favour. I’m lucky we have a copy here. Maurice got it when it came out.
Posted by steph on 07/03/2009 at 12:00
btw I keep calling AY Collins he instead of she. Aghhh!