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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Debts, talents and lending
A denarius was a day's pay and a talent about six thousand of them. Creditors could jail a debtor until someone paid, and people with spare money buried it or lent it at steep interest.
He owed more than the whole town would earn in a lifetime, and everyone listening laughed at the number. The Gospels count money in denarii and talents. A denarius was about a day's wage for a laborer; a talent was worth about six thousand of them. A debtor could be thrown in prison until someone paid for him, and anyone with spare money either buried it or lent it out at high interest.
A talent was a unit of account, not a coin. It was worth about six thousand denarii, and a denarius was an average day's wage (Keener). Others put it differently: about twenty years' wages (ESV Study Bible), six thousand days' wages (CSB Study Bible), or fifteen years' earnings (Wright). Josephus puts the yearly tribute from Galilee and Perea under Herod at two hundred talents. I will repay was a standard promise in promissory notes. Creditors are reported choking debtors. A jailed man could not pay unless friends raised the money. Keener calls selling a debtor's wife and children a Gentile practice that Jews of this period found abhorrent. Jewish law forbade the torture that Gentile kings and Herod used. Few had capital, so those who did lent it at high rates. Temples doubled as banks, and Keener reports a patron who lent to a city at about fifty percent. The law forbade interest from fellow Israelites (Deuteronomy 23:19-20). Many wealthy Jewish aristocrats followed Greek custom anyway. Burying money was among the safest ways to protect it, and Blomberg cites a rabbinic saying commending it. The law cancelled debts in the seventh year and the Jubilee (Deuteronomy 15; Leviticus 25). So lenders grew wary as the release neared, and teachers found a way around it. The Dead Sea Scrolls read Isaiah 61 as a Jubilee promise, though some scholars doubt the Jubilee was still kept. Kings proclaimed releases long before. Around 2450 BC Enmetena of Lagash cancelled grain loans and reunited mothers and children held as debt slaves. In the Old Babylonian period, about 2004 to 1595 BC, kings every decade or so cancelled private debts. They also freed debt slaves and returned land sold under stress (Podany). The likeness to the sabbatical release is drawn here, not by Podany.
An analogy: a gambling debt in the billions run up by a middle manager. The number alone tells listeners the story has left the real world, and that no payment plan could ever cover it.
Ancient Judaism often spoke of sins as debts before God, Keener notes, so a story about an unpayable debt, as in Matthew 18:24, measures what God forgives. Because the law already released debts in the seventh year, lending to the poor without hope of return, as in Luke 6:34-35, goes beyond what the law asked. Paul's promise in Philemon 19, I will repay, uses the wording of a promissory note.
Not a debt that only the debtor answers for. A modern gambler faces a bankruptcy court, and his family keeps its freedom. In Matthew 18 the king orders the man, his wife and his children sold, and jail held a debtor until friends paid. The size of the sum works the same way; the stakes for the household do not.
Three questions. First, was selling a debtor's family a Gentile practice or a common one? Keener and the cultural backgrounds notes say Jewish teachers forbade it and the king in Matthew 18 is a Gentile. The ESV Study Bible calls it common in the ancient world, pointing to 2 Kings 4:1 and Nehemiah 5. Second, was burying entrusted money prudent? Blomberg notes that a rabbinic maxim commended burial, so the servant may have looked careful. Keener says a deposit earning interest would have been just as safe, so the servant simply did not care. The cultural backgrounds notes say the money would have been safe with the bankers. The ESV Study Bible says there were no banks and burying valuables was common. Third, what was the document cancelled in Colossians 2:14? Keener and the ESV Study Bible read a handwritten note of debt before God. Keener writes, "Paul intends his readers to think of an IOU before God". The CSB Study Bible allows that it is the law of Moses. Wright reads the verse as the Torah set aside, the law of Moses that kept Gentiles out.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/matthew-25-14-30\/","n":"Matthew 25:14-30, Five, two and one talent","s":"A man going abroad entrusts his property to three slaves. Two double what they were given and are rewarded; the third buries his talent and is thrown out.","r":"Matthew 25:14-30"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/luke-4-16-30\/","n":"Luke 4:16-30, The year of the Lord's favor in Nazareth","s":"In the Nazareth synagogue Jesus reads Isaiah's promise of good news for the poor and release for captives and says it is fulfilled today. When he points to Elijah and Elisha helping foreigners, the town tries to throw him off a cliff.","r":"Luke 4:16-30"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/luke-6-20-36\/","n":"Luke 6:20-36, Blessings, woes and lending with nothing back","s":"Jesus blesses the poor, the hungry, the weeping and the hated, pronounces woes on the rich and the well fed, and tells his hearers to love enemies, turn the other cheek and lend without expecting anything back.","r":"Luke 6:20-36"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/luke-7-36-50\/","n":"Luke 7:36-50, A sinful woman at Simon's table","s":"At a Pharisee's banquet a woman known as a sinner weeps over Jesus' feet, wipes them with her hair and anoints them. Jesus answers his host's silent objection with a story of two debtors.","r":"Luke 7:36-50"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/luke-16-1-13\/","n":"Luke 16:1-13, The dishonest manager","s":"A rich man's manager, about to be dismissed for wasting his master's property, calls in the master's debtors and cuts their bills. The master praises his shrewdness.","r":"Luke 16:1-13"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/luke-19-11-27\/","n":"Luke 19:11-27, The nobleman who went to receive a kingdom","s":"Because people think the kingdom is about to appear, Jesus tells of a nobleman who travels to a far country to be made king while citizens who hate him send a delegation after him, and of the servants who trade with his money.","r":"Luke 19:11-27"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/colossians-2-8-15\/","n":"Colossians 2:8-15, The philosophy, a cancelled IOU and a triumph","s":"Paul warns against a philosophy built on human tradition and the elements of the world, tells Gentile believers they have already been circumcised in Christ, and pictures God cancelling their debt at the cross and leading the powers captive.","r":"Colossians 2:8-15"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/philemon-8-25\/","n":"Philemon 8-25, Onesimus sent home with a letter","s":"Paul appeals to Philemon, on the basis of love, for Onesimus, the slave who became Paul's son in prison: he sends him back to be received as a beloved brother rather than as a slave, asks Philemon to welcome him as he would Paul, offers to repay anything he owes, and asks for a guest room.","r":"Philemon 8-25"}
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 18:24, 18:25, 18:26, 18:28, 18:29-30, 18:34, 25:15-17, 25:18, 25:24-25 and 25:26-27
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 18:24, 18:25, 18:26, 18:28, 18:30-33, 25:16 and 25:18
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Matthew 18:24, 18:25, 25:18 and 25:27
- CSB Study Bible, note on Matthew 25:14-30
- Craig L. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, 7.1 The Talents
- N. T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part Two, comment on Matthew 25:14-30
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Luke 4:18-19, 6:34-35 and 7:40-42
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Luke 6:34
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Colossians 2:13-14
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Colossians 2:14
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Colossians 2:14
- CSB Study Bible, note on Colossians 2:14
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, ch. 11, Ephesus II
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, comment on Colossians 2:13-19
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 13, Colossians, The Contribution of Colossians
- Amanda H. Podany, Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East, ch. 3, King Enmetena of Lagash: Warrior, Diplomat, and Benefactor
- Amanda H. Podany, The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction, ch. 7, Daily life
