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The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Mark 12:13-17, The coin with Caesar's face
Pharisees and Herodians ask whether it is right to pay tax to Caesar. Jesus asks for a coin and asks whose image is on it.
Mark 12:13-17, in every translation this tool compares.
After flattering him, the questioners set a trap: pay the tax and lose the crowd, or refuse it and be reported to Rome. Jesus has them bring him a denarius and asks whose face and inscription it carries. They say Caesar's, and he tells them to give Caesar what is Caesar's and God what is God's.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/herod-and-herodians\/","n":"Herod Antipas and the Herodians","s":"Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, ran Galilee for Rome as a tetrarch, not a king. The Herodians were his backers.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/tax-collectors\/","n":"Tolls and tax collectors","s":"Local men who collected tolls and taxes for rulers backed by Rome, distrusted as collaborators and cheats.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/rome-in-charge\/","n":"Rome in charge","s":"Rome ruled through client princes, local elites and governors. It kept the power to execute, and its soldiers, coins and taxes were everywhere.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/messiah\/","n":"The Messiah, son of David","s":"The anointed king most Jews expected from David's line, who would free Israel from its enemies. Nobody expected him to be killed.","r":""}
Keener notes that this coin and the tax behind it had sparked a revolt about a quarter century earlier. Wright, who owns a coin of this type, notes that its inscriptions call Tiberius son of the divine Augustus and high priest, and says that if the Romans had set out to offend the Jews they could hardly have done better. Judea became a province in AD 6 and paid the poll tax on the basis of the census; the reverse of the denarius showed a seated woman, Livia or a priestess, standing for the Roman peace (Garland). The word for the tax is the Roman poll tax (the Zondervan Bible Dictionary).
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Mark 12:13 and 12:14, and note on Matthew 22:19-20
- N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, comment on Mark 12:13-17
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Mark 12:14, 12:16 and 12:17
- David E. Garland, Mark, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Mark 12:14-16
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry tribute
