Bible Synapse
Shekel of Tyre
Coin · 126 BC – 1st century AD · Time of Jesus · also called Tyrian shekel
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- Date
- 126 BC – 1st century AD (the series of Tyrian shekels)
- Found
- Struck at Tyre (a coin type known from many examples). Tyre struck these silver shekels and half-shekels with the year of the city's era. Large hoards have been found in Israel, such as the hoard of about 4,500 silver coins, most of them Tyrian shekels and half-shekels, found at Isfiya on Mount Carmel in 1960.
- Now
- Hecht Museum, University of Haifa (examples shown), Haifa
- Passages
- Exodus 30:13, Matthew 17:24–27, Matthew 21:12, Matthew 26:14–15, Matthew 27:3–10
What it is
A large silver coin of the Phoenician city of Tyre, weighing about 14 grams, with the laureate head of the city's god Melqart (Heracles) on one side and an eagle standing on a ship's prow on the other. The Greek legend reads “of Tyre, holy and inviolable”. Tyre struck these shekels, and half-shekels, from 126 BC until the middle of the 1st century AD, and they were valued for their very pure silver.
How it connects to the Bible
Tyrian shekels are widely thought to have been the standard coin for the yearly Temple tax of half a shekel (Exodus 30:13), which would explain the moneychangers whose tables Jesus overturned. In Matthew 17 the collectors ask Peter, “Doth not your master pay tribute?”, and the coin from the fish's mouth, a stater, pays for both Jesus and Peter, as a Tyrian shekel would. The “thirty pieces of silver” paid to Judas may also have been Tyrian shekels, though scholars disagree on the coin.
What scholars debate
The Gospels do not name the coins, so these identifications rest on what is known of the money used at the Temple.