Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Matthew

[Scotchie]

How much was thirty pieces of silver worth in the time of Jesus?

[Allissa]

At spot valuation of $17.06/oz (the closing price on Monday, December 12, 2016), 30 "pieces of silver" would be worth between $185 and $216 in present-day value (USD).

[jimwalton]

I beg to differ with Allissa. The 30 pieces of silver were 30 shekels, in the day of Jesus equal to 120 denarii. A denarius was a typical day's wage for a full day of work in the fields. So figure out what you think is a normal day's wage for a farm hand, multiply by 120, and you have it. So 120 denarii would have been about 4 months' wages. (If you want to go with $12/hr for 8 hours a day, that's $96 for a day, times 120 = $11,520.)

More to the point, though, it was the current average price to buy a slave. In Exodus 21.32, if a man's ox gored a servant, he had to pay 30 pieces of silver. In other words, Judas sold Jesus as if he were no more valuable than a slave.

[Allissa]

Oh, you're right. I found the present-day value, not their worth at the time.

[jimwalton]

Yeah, no big deal. And, of course, it's one thing to know its value in weight, but another thing to know what it could buy. While the silver itself may have been worth X dollars, the economy is what determines what X dollars can buy. One day our dollar can buy 1/2 gallon of gas, but the year later only a quart. Up in Canada or down in Mexico, our dollar can only buy less than a pint of gas.

The better comparison, as I said, was that it was the price of a slave. That tells us more than anything else the contempt the religious leaders had for Jesus and the disrespect for him Judas agreed to in the price.

[Righteous One]

> More to the point, though, it was the current average price to buy a slave.
> In Exodus 21.32, if a man's ox gored a servant, he had to pay 30 pieces of silver.

I agree with your sentence about the compensation law in Exodus 21:32, but I don't know of any basis for saying that 30 pieces of silver was "the current average price to buy a slave."

[jimwalton]

In Ex. 21.32, 30 shekels of silver was fair compensation for the loss of a slave, as you say. You're right in asking your question.

In Lev. 27.3-7, prices vary anywhere from 3-50 shekels, depending on the age and gender of the slave. 20 shekels was the price for a young man (Lev. 27.5; Gen. 37.28), 50 for a strong, working man, and 30 for a woman.

In Sumerian usage, "30 shekels' worth" has an idiomatic meaning along the lines of our old-fashioned "two bits" or "a plug nickel," meaning that something was virtually worthless.

2 Maccabees (8.11) gives the average slave price at 40 shekels.

So, with a range of 3-50, 30 is about average. And if Ex. 21.32 allows 30 shekels as fair compensation for loss of a slave, and if woman is worth about 30, and given the information of ancient Sumer and 2 Maccabees, 30 is a fair estimate of "average," given that prices could vary depending on various conditions.