New Testament money (part 2) - updated

 You'll need to read part 1 for this to make sense.

Some examples

Judas betrayed Jesus 

for 30 pieces of silver - that's £3,000

Parable of the talents

He gave them 5, 2 and 1 talents - £50,000, £20,000, and £10,000 respectively. Not just a few pounds!

Parable of the two debtors 

One was forgiven a debt of 500 denarii, the other a debt of 50 - that's £50,000 compared to £5,000

Parable of the unmerciful servant

The servant was forgiven a debt of 10,000 talents, yet threw his fellow servant in jail for a debt of 100 denarii. The first debt was £100 million(!), the second was £10,000.

So it's important not to imply that the smaller debt was insignificant. It was a real debt - other people do us real wrongs (for some people - horrendous wrongs. And Jesus is not saying these don't matter). We should forgive, not because it doesn't matter, but because we realise how impossibly large is the debt God has forgiven us (do we?)

Widow's mite

She put in two small copper coins - that's £1.04

It was not 2p, as we sometimes imply. 2p is worthless, so you might as well put it in. £1 could buy something to eat, yet she gave it.

New Testament money (part 1) - updated

Back in 2017 I wrote a couple of posts on how much Bible prices would be now. But the minimum wage has changed a lot since then - so here's an adapted version for 2025. I also used a squiggly equals sign this time ≈ because I've been illustrating a maths book that used them!

 

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I find it really helpful, when reading (or teaching) passages that involve sums of money, to translate them into modern money. After all, what does 'silver coin' or 'talent' or 'copper coin' actually mean to the average 21st century person? Was it a lot? A little? How much? How little?

So here's how I do it. It's not foolproof, but it's helpful

Denarius

(aka silver coin/drachma - same thing, different translations )

http://www.cngcoins.com

1 Denarius = a days's wage for a worker.
So take this to be minimum wage.

In the UK the minimum wage is currently £12.21 per hour. (You can substitute the minimum wage in your country.)
Assuming an average 8 hour workday, that's £97.68 a day.

So 1 denarius ≈ £100. 

 

Talent

A talent was 100 denarii.
That's £100 x 100

So 1 talent ≈ £10,000

 

Mite

(aka copper coin)

This was the smallest coin at the time.
192 in a denarius (what a weird number!)

£100÷192=0.520833

So 1 mite ≈ 52p


Of course, different things had different value in those days - clothes were incredibly expensive; rent was cheap. Some food was dearer than for us; I think some was cheaper. Still, it's a help.

Read part 2 of this enthralling story here... 

Variations on a theme

I was amused by this noughts & crosses left by some kids in church.

For the first game they used their initials, for the next they coloured the squares blue or red, then they used the traditional X and O, and finally one wrote "10" and the other wrote "100".