Bible Synapse
Coins of Herod Agrippa I
Coin · AD 41/42 · The early church · also called Agrippa I prutah
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- AD 41/42 (the striking of the canopy coins (year 6))
- Found
- Struck at Jerusalem (coin type). A small bronze coin known from many examples; the Roman Provincial Coinage database lists 40 specimens of this type.
- Now
- Many collections
- Passages
- Acts 12:1–23
What it is
Small bronze coins (prutot) struck at Jerusalem for King Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great. On the type found most often, one face has a fringed canopy, a sign of royalty, and the Greek legend “of King Agrippa”; the other has three ears of barley and the date year 6, which is AD 41/42. Unlike some of his other coins, which carry portraits of the emperor or of Agrippa himself, this type has no human image.
How it connects to the Bible
Acts 12 calls him “Herod the king”. He had James the brother of John put to death, imprisoned Peter, and died suddenly at Caesarea after a crowd hailed him as a god. The Jewish historian Josephus describes the same death at Caesarea in AD 44. The coins name the same ruler by his own name, Agrippa.
What scholars debate
One scholar has proposed that the canopy coins belong to Agrippa II, but the editors of Roman Provincial Coinage keep the usual attribution to Agrippa I.