Christianity On Coins
(Amoung the most significant artifacts for the historical study of Early Christianity are their coin-issues. These coins are of the greatest relevance from their cultural, theological and monetary points of view.) ..you will find a silver coin; take that and pay it in..” (Matthew 17:27) The Land of Israel was under foreign hegemony for hundreds of years, but of all its occupiers, the Roman Empire exerted the greatest influence over the poplace. Thus in the areas of commerce, military and taxation Roman coinage was used by the governing bodies and citizens. Many of the coins of the Roman Empire circulating the Near Eastern countries at that period, bore on the obverse the portraits of the emperors and on the reverse pagan and monumental motifs.
The urbanization process initiated by Pompey in 63 BC gave greater autonomy to thirty-cities in the Holy Land (amoung them Aelia Capitolina, the name which the Romans re-named Jerusalem) were given the right to mint their own coins.
COINS IN ANCIENT ISRAEL IN THE FIRST CENTURY AD:
During the first century AD, the empire of Rome ruled the world including the Land of Israel. After the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, his kingdom was divided amoung his three sons – Herod Archelaus, Herod Antipas and Phillip. In 6 AD, a new administration was established in Judea, run by Roman Procurators, which except for the short rule of Agrippa I (37-43 AD), continued uninterupted until the Jewish War of 66 AD. The Roman procurators supervised tax collection and judicial proceedings. They tried hard to avoid clashing with or antagonizing the local population. This sensivity is also apparent in the coins they issued, without portraits, and resembling coins struck by the