On Paying Taxes to Caesar

Mark For Everyone

MARK 12.13–17
On Paying Taxes to Caesar...

...I have on my desk one of the tribute-pennies from the reign of Tiberius Caesar. It is almost certainly the type that features in this story. It’s about the size of my thumbnail, but you can make out the writing quite clearly – and the imperial head of Tiberius. You don’t have to look at it for too long to see that this conversation wasn’t simply about taxation policy.

That was itself bad enough, though. Paying taxes to Rome was a running sore to devout Jews. It wasn’t only the cost, though for many that would be serious (they would also pay local taxes, Temple taxes and, for those in Galilee, taxes to Herod as well). It was what the tax represented. The Jews celebrated the fact that they were God’s free people, but they agonized over the fact that it wasn’t true. Ever since the Babylonian invasion half a millennium before, they had been ruled by others. Under the Hasmoneans, in the period roughly 163 BC to 63 BC, they were semi-independent; but since then Rome had taken over. And where Rome ruled, Rome taxed, and Rome was hated for it...

Taken from Mark for Everyone by Tom Wright