Today is Good Friday, when Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Christ. With the markets closed in observance, I thought it would be interesting to delve into the role silver played in the crucifixion narrative.
According to biblical accounts, Judas betrayed Jesus in exchange for 30 pieces of silver. The Gospel of Matthew describes it this way:
“Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, ‘What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?’ So, they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on, Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.”
Just how much money did Judas receive in exchange for his betrayal?
Old Testament prophecy gives us some context by explaining the relative value of the money. According to Zechariah (11:12-13), 30 pieces of silver were the “handsome price” given for a shepherd's wages.
I told them, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’—the handsome price at which they valued me! So, I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the Lord.”
This foreshadowed Judas returning the money and the priests using it to buy a potter’s field.
The obvious sarcasm in the use of the term “handsome price” reveals that 30 pieces of silver was not considered a significant sum of money.
This is reinforced by Exodus 21:32, where we learn that 30 pieces of silver were the price paid for a slave who had been gored by an ox.
The biblical account doesn’t reveal the exact coins Judas accepted, but we can speculate based on the archeological evidence.
During the time of Christ, there were several different types of coins in circulation, including Roman coins such as the denarii, provincial coins influenced by the Greeks, and temple coins accepted by Jewish authorities.
The most likely candidate for Judas’s payment was the Tyrian shekel. These coins were valued for their purity (94 percent silver or greater) and were accepted in the Jerusalem temple for payment of temple taxes.
The fact that Judas later threw the coins into the temple and the priests used the money to buy a potter’s field implies that the coins were temple-compliant. This would not have been the case for Roman or Greek coins due to their less consistent purity and their pagan imagery.
Tyrian shekels also featured pagan imagery – the head of Melqart, a Phoenician god identified with Heracles. However, this was considered less offensive than some of the Roman and Greek coinage and was mitigated somewhat in the eyes of Jewish officials due to the coins’ consistent weight and purity.
A Tyrian shekel weighed around 14 grams. Given the weight, the 30 coins would have weighed in at around 420 grams or 13.5 ounces. At today’s silver price, the coins would be worth about $442.
That’s not an insignificant sum, but it seems like a rather paltry price for a man’s life.
If Judas had collected his fee in gold, he would have had over $45,000 at the current price.
Whether you believe the biblical account or not, it certainly reveals some universal truths about human nature. It also underscores an economic truth – silver and gold have served as money for thousands of years. It had value then, and it retains that value today.
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