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Comment by zerr | Hacker News Reader

How did rich people keep their wealth? Interesting, they had banking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_ancient_Rome

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Sometimes those bankers were disrupted by Judeans coming in an smashing up the nice open plan lending atriums. Really need the firm hand of government to prevent repeat offending

Not to disrupt some good humor with boring factual accuracy, but worth noting the "temple money changers" were not Romans or bankers. Historic academics is of course rarely conclusive, especially biblical exegesis, but it's generally accepted by scholars that the "money changers" were Jews, likely volunteers, who provided a service required by Jewish law: exchanging Roman coins for Tyrian shekels to purchase animals for sacrifice. It was not realistic for every pilgrim to the Temple to bring their own animal so out of towners would buy one there, but it wasn't permitted to buy one with Roman money.

For some sources, here's two good threads[0][1] on /r/AcademicBiblical, which is strictly moderated with secular scholar rigor, and a video[2] linked in one of those threads by Dr Ian Mills at Duke University. If you're interested in an analysis of the intended meaning of the passage, there's more in those links.

[0]https://old.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/136pdmc/w...

[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/5xwjgd/wh...

[2]https://youtu.be/dLp-kgf0Ky4

What's interesting is Matthew 22:19, where Jesus has asked someone to show Him a Roman coin, and his questioners manage to produce it, no problem. Well, the Jews were forbidden to possess those denarii, because it made the person ritually impure (Matthew the Apostle, aka Levi, would know). So whoever produced the coin on request was probably rather embarrassed about it.

AIUI, the Book of Matthew was not written by that Matthew, or indeed by anyone whose identity we know, right?

This is correct - I don’t have as much knowledge about Jewish law and its usual interpretation circa 0AD, but Matthew was one of the first gospels to have its traditional authorship questioned because it is written in masterfully crafted classical Greek - not anything accessible to a rural Aramaic speaker. Since the birth of Biblical exegesis scholarship in the 19th century it has been widely accepted that none of the gospels were authored by the traditionally associated apostles, or any apostles, or even any first-hand witnesses to Jesus. The book I immediately recall about this is Forged by Bart Ehrman, but gospel authorship is one of the most well tread and thoroughly analyzed areas of biblical scholarship and the fact that the apostles didn’t write them is one of the points closest to consensus in the field.

I am intrigued to learn more about how Roman currency was managed in Judea at that time. As far as I know Jewish law did forbid carrying coinage with images of the emperor, but obviously many Jewish pilgrims to the temple had to exchange some kind of currency for shekels.

Jews by the time of Jesus were very diverse just as they are today. Even in Judea itself you would find very different opinions on how "the law" (Halacha) should be interpreted. Most would probably find it silly and impractical to not use Roman coins. The point of Matthew 22:15-22 may be that. The Pharisee hands him a coin with the image of the emperor on it and Jesus reminds him that "Hey, you shouldn't be touching this at all. You hypocrite!"

I'd understood at least the first three books - and I tend to follow the consensus around Markan Priority - were penned in Koine rather than classical? I suspect the distinction is of marginal relevance, in the current context.

Yes, I think your understanding of this field exceeds mine - not even sure where I pulled out “classical” Greek from, since in hindsight, the author of Matthew far post dated classical Greece!

You just know at least one person got nailed for it.

Supposedly

Actually the vandalism was from the Galileans. The Judeans totally adored their market makers.

Oh I thought that Jesus was a galilean and also a Judean (that Galilea was a rural part of the larger Judea).

Well, there was Roman province called Provincia Iudaea. It was much larger than the Palestinian region Judea, but at no point (it's borders were adjusted multiple times) did it cover the Galilee.

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