Facilitating Sales Sample Clauses

Facilitating Sales. Foreign coinage was standard in Judea during the NT period. Judea possessed no right to mint its own coinage, and it also lacked the precious metals necessary for minting. Foreign coins from disparate sources and of different weights and sizes circulated throughout Judea, especially in cosmopolitan cities like Jerusalem, with the result that “simple commercial exchanges often required the services of a moneychanger” (cf. m. ‘Ed. 1:9–10).216

Facilitating Sales. Foreign coinage was standard in Judea during the NT period. Judea possessed no right to mint its own coinage, and it also lacked the precious metals necessary for minting. Foreign coins from disparate sources and of different weights and sizes circulated throughout Judea, especially in cosmopolitan cities like Jerusalem, with the result that “simple commercial exchanges often required the services of a moneychanger” (cf. m. ‘Ed. 1:9–10).216 The purchase of sacrificial animals was one such commercial exchange.217 In Jerusalem, moneychangers sat at the gate of the city or of the temple and made their services available for a fee of something between two and eight percent of the total transaction (m. #eqal. 1:7).218 Given the high number of sales in sacrificial animals, not to mention the many other sales transactions, moneychangers in Jerusalem could 216 John W. Betlyon, “Coinage,” ABD 1:1076–1089 (1086). For the diversity of coinage that circulated in Jerusalem, see Donald T. Ariel, “A Survey of Coin Finds in Jerusalem (Until the End of the Byzantine Period),” LASBF 32 (1982): 273–326. 217 From Mark 11:15, Matt 21:12, and John 2:14–16 one gets the impression the moneychangers were stationed near the sacrificial animal merchants, readily available to participate in their transactions. 218 Betlyon, “Coinage,” 1:1086; Haenchen, John, 1:183. In m. #eqal. 1:7, R. Meir states the surcharge consists of a silver maah, which is 1/24, or 4.2%, of a sela, while the sages say it consists of half of a silver maah, which would be 2.1% of a sela. Under certain circumstances described in m. #eqal. 1:6, two surcharges are levied, in which case the total surcharge would be either 4.2% or 8.4%, depending on whether the prescription of the sages or of R. Meir is being followed. Regardless of questions surrounding the accuracy of the figures given in the Mishnah, moneychangers charged a small fee for their services. earn a good living during festival time. That texts like Mark 11:15, Matt 21:12, John 2:14–15, and m. #eqal. 1:3 assume their presence in the temple confirms that the temple and the economic activity it generated attracted the bankers and financiers of antiquity.219